I'm making a toddler game and trying to prevent them from accessing the rest of the phone from within the app. I know you can overload the back key on the menu but how about the other 2 keys? I just want to add a confirmation screen that only adults can deal with so toddlers wont be able to mess with the phone and get out of the app.
Hi you should use the "kiosk mode" features present on Android sdk. Take a look here.
Related
I want to be able to tap the statusbar and the contents in the displayed app to be scrolled up to the top.
Is it technically possible that an app intercept my tap and send the appropriate command to the active app? I have noticed for example that AntTek quick settings shows a drop-down window when swiping down from statusbar. While using the app I did also notice that even by just tapping the statusbar (before beginning to move the finger down), the app seems to already interact with the touch as it dims the screen brightness in preparation to display it's "window" (sorry I use the MS Windows term), so clearly a statusbar tap CAN be sensed by an app.
Starting from this, I wonder if such an app could then send a message to the active program telling it to scroll up.
Is that possible? And if yes, the message must be customized to a particular app (let's say the browser as the most important) or is it standardized so the apps speak the same language between themselves?
I am not a programmer so answers with codesamples might be less helpful than a plain english explanation. Finding out that is possible would lead rather to pursuing a programmer to implement the idea rather than starting to develop it myself.
Thanks :-)
There is an XPosed-module which seems to do exactly what you want.
To use XPosed-modules, you'll need to root your phone and install the XPosed-framework.
The XPosed-module is called "Statusbar Scroll to Top" and its repository can be found here:
http://repo.xposed.info/module/com.mohammadag.statusbarscrolltotop
This will work for almost all app-lists, but for example won't work for browser-content.
If you want to scroll to the top of the page in a browser, then you'll probably do best to get a browser which can do that on its own. (For example Habit Browser has it built-in and respective plugins are available for Firefox.)
Yes it is possible. HiroMacro and Frep can do this, but it requires root. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.prohiro.macro&hl=en
(how do they simulate mouse and keyboard interactions on other applications? i have no clue :/ anyone?)
Is it technically possible that an app intercept my tap and send the appropriate command to the active app?
No. One app cannot send fake input to another app, for security reasons.
An android app comprises of several activities. Each activity display a GUI that allows the user to perform a specific task. To take the user from one activity to another, app must use an Intent to define our app’s intent to do something.
An intent can be explicit in order to start a specific component (a specific Activity instance) or implicit in order to start any component that can handle the intended action.
Interacting one app to other app in android
google docs link
So I am using the Home sample to build an application that creates a second home screen for the user. The idea is to be able to have only one user account yet restrict certain access to chosen applications. I have managed to ensure that all of the applications are invisible in the XML yet I am struggling with how to change this to make certain apps visible.
Is it possible to write a whitelist of accepted apps for instance the preinstalled apps or child friendly apps for children who game using the android device and then put in a Java method to access this white list? This is the only way I can think to make it work.
If anyone knows the correct way can you please help.
Thanks.
Ok so I discovered how to do this.
In the home sample they provide a for loop in the Home.java file that covers all apps and displays them. It take a simple if statement to restrict the apps that can be viewed -
// for loop is here
if (info.activityInfo.applicationInfo.packageName.contains("com.android"))
//then the rest of the home sample is here.
Still very basic but provides me with a good enough UI so that kids cannot see apps I don't want them to.
I am relatively new to android and want to create an application that permanently overrides androids basic softkey behaviour and view (for devices with soft keys).
Some functionalities I want to implement are changing the size of the softkeys window at the bottom, change its images, and possibly change its functionality.
For example, the user can set the size to of the softkey to be "large", "medium" or "small". And I can change the functionality of the back button to open say a particular application instead of going "back".
I'm basically looking for a high level answer as to how to do this, a basic direction of what I should read/study in order to be able to accomplish this. I realise this may require root access.
Please note that I want this behaviour to change not only in my application but I want the effect to exist on all applications. If this requires the application to be running atleast at the backend, that is fine.
After doing some decent amount of search, it seems I will have to make changes in the systemUI.apk, or possibly get its source code and modify it. Is this correct?
Thanks in advance.
I don't think even root is going to be enough for the type of changes you are describing. You're going to need to edit the Android source code and build your own system image.
Well you can't override system resources because they are part of the system image.
What you are looking for is called Home Application which can be developed like any other android app no need for root , you can find an example for it in your sdk samples.
Home Sample Application.
your app would be responsible to have UI components to send the user to all of the phone functionalities which includes:
Place for wegits
Place for apps listing (menue)
Access telephony functionality (call, phone history ...)
Access settings.
I want to enable/disable the Android market programmatically for my kids app (with a checkbox). Is this possible? How?
Generally, no. You cannot affect the behaviour of other apps from your app. There are tricks that allow you to monitor what has been stated and you can bring your own app in the foreground to sort of 'block' it, but this is neither supported, nor guaranteed to work on all devices and Android versions.
To disable the play store, do as you would with any other app if you were going to delete it, however in replace of the delete buttin wil be a disable button.
If you do not want to disable it all together, you can open the app, click menu, and then settings, and then half way down on the list you are abe to set a passcode for purchases.
EDIT
I know hat you said programmatically, however this could still be a solution as to what you may be looking for instead as a workaround.
I am working on a project where we have to put a Google TV in a public area. I am building a custom application for it that should be running all the time. Basically, we don't want someone to be able to switch out of this specific application. In a perfect world, people walking by should be able to use a keyboard that comes with the Google TV (Revue). My question is, is there a way to programmatically lock down the system? Or do we need to use a special keyboard that only has alphanumeric buttons on it?
I am not an expert in Google TV,but such a problem can be handled in the mobile by creating a Home application and making that as default.So the user cannot switch out the application.Of course you need to make sure that your app is the default Home app before giving it out to the user(anyways this is your device and not the users). I am not sure whether the Google TV has a home intent.
My question is, is there a way to diagrammatically lock down the system?
Not without creating your own custom firmware, which at the moment is not possible for Google TV IIRC.
Or do we need to use a special keyboard that only has alphanumeric buttons on it?
Not only do you need that, but you would have to get one that works with the device (not sure if a standard Bluetooth keyboard will work), and then you will run into problems with missing buttons like BACK and MENU. You might be able to engineer around those missing buttons by having adequate navigation in the app to avoid users needing them.