WhatsApp gets option to no longer display notifications with priority –

 WhatsApp for Android gets an option to display notifications with low priority. This means that notifications are no longer displayed as ‘heads up’ notifications, but they only appear as an icon in the notification bar.

The settings menu for notifications in beta

function is in the latest beta of WhatsApp, reports WABetaInfo . The version number of this is 2.18.117 beta. The high-priority notifications only mean that the message is displayed at the top of the screen, even if there are newer notifications.
The beta turns the function on by default. WABetaInfo reports that the function works from Android 5.0, when Google put heads-up notifications into Android. The feature also uses Notification Channels to adjust the priority of notifications for, for example, group chats and private chats. This function works from Android 8.0
It is not possible to indicate per chat that a notification should be given priority: the developers of WhatsApp have to define the Channels in the app, and it is impossible for every chat of a user. However, it is possible to enable high-priority notifications for private chats and to set out for group chats.
It is unknown if and when the function comes in the stable version of WhatsApp. The high-priority notifications are currently impossible on iOS, because Apple’s mobile operating system has no way to divide notifications from an app into various groups and to set options for that.
Update, 18:54 : As a note by a website P1nGu1n the support for notification channels from October on updates of apps is mandatory if the app has api 26 or higher as target. Level 26 is Android 8.0. Moreover, it is precisely about being able to display notifications with low priority, which is not yet possible. By default, WhatsApp provides notifications with high priority.