in android system api there are several methods which are not compileable for a 3th party app (means: not a system app/system signature signed app).
special example: goToSleep() in PowerManager. (which turns off screen)
goToSleep is also marked as removed if you look at docs at developer.android.com history. but in fact it is defined in sdk source code when you look in e.g. powermanager.java.
if you try to use it, you get standard compiler error, unknown reference.
but in e.g. well known 3th party launcher Lawnchair they use it in a root service (provided by john wu's libsu) to turn of screen after double tap screen. so the root service has of course the permissions at runtime to use that method.
at runtime.. but what settings in android studio project enable to get that compiled??
the source of lawnchair is at github. that special source file is:
https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair/blob/12.1-dev/lawnchair/src/app/lawnchair/root/RootHelperBackend.java
thanks in advance for some tips
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We have a custom ROM for a device we are making and what I want to do is make our own custom Settings app to replace the settings app that comes already built in android.
I cant really find any documentation on how to even create a system app. It does not appear you can create it in Android Studio, I tried looking on the AOSP site and didnt find anything there related to creating system apps. The few things I did find were on here where you would put android:sharedUserId="android.uid.system" in your manifest and then has to be signed with the same key as the ROM but after that I cant find anything.
The settings app I want to create would need access to the framework.jar to be able to use the hidden framework API's.
Does anyone have any information or know where I can find this information on how to go about actually creating a system app?
You may want to research how to make a Device Tree Overlay (dto). Basically it is your code, reformatting the base code, into what you want. https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/dto?hl=en
Since you said you use Gradle, you should put first build you apk and put them in you vender folder, and next important thing is to create a mk/bp file to tell the Android build system how to deal with this pre-built apk.
P.S. If you system app highly depends on Android hidden api, make sure you have the right version of framework.jar in you Android Studio project, or, as what I alway did, create apps directly in AOSP, in this case, you can just check the code structure of the original Settings app in AOSP
this tutorial may help you.
I'm trying to install Kik Messenger twice. I have two accounts and don't like to log out because I lose all of my conversation history. I'm currently using Titanium backup's profile feature, which is a very nice fix, but it's still a pain having to switch back and forth between profiles. I might be looking for "perfect" when perfect doesn't exist. I am completely new to modding apks and Android in general, all of my work on this so far has been "trial and error". Anyways, here's what I have:
I have the Google Play version of Kik installed on my phone. I have extracted that app and modified the package name successfully using apktool. However, when I try to install, I get an error saying something about duplicate provider authority. So I did some research and learned that I'm supposed to edit this part of the AndroidManifest. So I have played around with that a little bit and after I change the authorities, I am able to install the modded app. However, it crashes immediately.
Does anyone know how to fix this problem with the provider/authorities?
The issue you're hitting is that the app has registered certain classes to handle particular events. These need to be unique across all installed apps and point to existing classes in the app that will perform some activity with the supplied information.
You bypassed the safety check when installing by changing the defined handlers in the Manifest but that didn't really fix it as they still need to actually point to a valid, working class that can handle the requests/events.
You would need to decompile, rename the classes involved and all references made to them and recompile the whole app to really fix the problem. However, I'd assume that it would likely be against the license. If the code is open source then it wouldn't be too big a task to rename some classes & packages then build the app. If it's closed source then it is a harder task.
What you can do is either set up your device to use multiple accounts (the OS not the app) as each user has a separate data storage and preference location that should allow you to have two configurations. Or you can request that the developers include some sort of multiple account handling or easy account swap feature.
I have task to modify android gingerbread launcher (2.3). I want to download launcher's sources and add some functionality. I have found sources here:
android Gingerbread launcher sources
I download this and import into workspace as is. As a result I get numerous compile errors (some classes are missing, instance variables are missing, etc). Why? I mean why wouldn't it compile? What should I do to make it compile?
P.S. By the way, when project is imported, used platform as per project settings is not 2.3, so I have to manually set it to 2.3. However, numerous errors still remain.
To convert an AOSP application into a standalone SDK application, you will need to find all the "classes and variable not present in the SDK" and remove/replace the references to them. The simplest is to remove the references to them, if the app will still run with reduced functionality. For references to internal resources, you can simply copy those to your project and modify the R values to point to your local copy. You are welcome to examine the "classes and variable not present in the SDK" and determine that you can copy those as well (refactoring them into a new package), in which case you would update your project to refer to the copied and refactored classes.
The easier solution would be to use someone's source where they already did that..Here found one at
Launcher2 full compilable Ginngerbread lancher code
Have a look at here.
It is the Launcher2 from ICS, not GB, but they are very similar.
From Wiki: Note that it is not completely bug free, and adding widgets will crash the app (as it uses a system level permission. Maybe if you installed via root it'll work).
Here's a list of what all I had to do, that I can recall doing:
There are lots of methods like setFastXXX (for example, setFastAlpha()) that aren't available to us. Changing these to setXXX (for example, 'setAlpha()`) worked for me.
Some thing which are available to us via getSystemService() are initialized directly in the code, like the usage of the Vibrator class. These need to be changed to use getSystemService().
I am modifying CyanogenMod (CM 7) Source code,
i want to include "Cyanogen/packages/apps/phone/src/com/android/phone/CallNotifier.java" in the "Cyanogen/frameworks/base/policy/src/com/android/internal/policy/impl/LockPatternGuardview.java" file. I added "import com.android.phone.CallNotifier;" in the LockPatternGuardview.java file and upon compiling i get this error.
LockPatternKeyguardView.java:20: package com.android.phone does not exist
import com.android.phone.CallNotifier;
^
But CallNotifier.java is included in the "com.android.phone" package, so if someone can please tell that how to include com.android.phone package ?
You can't include com.android.phone, it's hidden.
You might be able to access it via reflection but in most cases, the telephony stack is setup so that it's running in a different process and you won't be able to access anything meaningfull.
In development case, android api is consisted of collection of abstract class. And the implemented class kept on android os. So that when you use android api, during execution it actually call that implemented classes from android os. Therefore, you actually implement that class, but it unable to find that class from os.
It'll happen if you install this app as third party, try to push your app in /system/app/ path, and reboot your device. It'll be installed.
System folder always stays in readonly mode.
Search on google about push to system tutorial.
Good luck...
My goal is to modify the Launcher application and dynamically modify and change the theme.
I saw several 'home' apps at http://www.cyrket.com/p/android/com.stain46.taghome/. It looks like they took the default Home(Launcher) and modified it. How did they do that? What do I need to modify to achieve the same thing?
I have done this with the ICS launcher. You also need to do quite a number of code changes to get it to compile as a normal app because it uses a lot of private internal APIs (despite what Google may have implied). You also need to change the package name. There are two limitations I've found:
There's a filter called TableMaskFilter that isn't available to normal apps. I think this allows the app drawer to be semi-transparent, but I removed uses of it and it looks fine I think.
More critically, it appears there is no way to replicate the widget-adding experience because it requires a permission that only system apps can have. See this question.
Anyway, I put my source here. It compiles and works on the official Galaxy S2 4.0.3, but if you try to add widgets it will crash.
Note, when you're changing the package name, there are places that Eclipse's refactor doesn't notice (e.g. XML layouts). I recommend you do a global text search/replace instead.
The standard Launcher is open source so you can definitely grab it and modify it the way you want. For your app to be used as the Home Screen you will need to specify the correct Intent filter in your AndroidManifest.xml and the user will have to choose your app when they press the Home button. Why don't you grab that code, play with it and come back when you have more questions and more of an idea of what you want to change.
Here i found one stable version Launcher2
I have sharing that GitHub repo. HERE
WIKI of this project :
This project contains the code for the Launcher app that ships with Android Jelly Bean (API 16).
Some minor changes were required from this source code to remove the use of private APIs. These changes have been marked by "// AOSP Change"