Develop Reference

detect difference between pausing or leaving an activity vs switching activities?

I have an application with multiple activities and have some behavior in onPause on my MainActivity that I don't want to happen when switching to another activity.
Right now whenever I switch activities the MainActivity onPause() is called and it always runs the behavior.

Activity lifecycles are tightly coordinated, so when launching one Activity B, from Activity A, the following lifecycle events will take place: ActivityA.onPause, ActivityB.onCreate, ActivityB.onStart, ActivityB.onResume, ActivityA.onStop. You can definitely leverage this lifecycle coordination to achieve what you want, if you are move you "behavoir" to the lifecycle method onStop (which is a better place to do most shutdown/stopping work at).
Create a Lifecycle registrar object that will perform the "behavior" when there are no activities are registered in the Lifecycle registrar object. Register your Activities inside of their onStart() and onStop() liefycle callbacks. Inside of the deregister method of your Lifecycle registration object check to see if there are any registered objects and if their aren't you perform you "behavior" whatever that may be. You can extend this functionality to work with Services, just register and deregister the service with the Lifecycle registrar inside the Service's onCreate, onDestroy respectively.
Using onStop instead of onPause, has the added benefit of keeping you from doing your paused/stopped "behavior" when the app is actually in the background and not just partially visibly, such as the case when the system displays a dialog. For example, when requesting to start Bluetooth, the Android OS will generate a dialog prompting the user, and calling onPause. This makes since for some apps but not all apps, and when you think about it, there are a various other use-cases that will cause the app to enter onPause(), that would be annoying to the user for you app to perform shutdown processes.
I have personally utilized this scheme to maintain a open connection, while the app is open and close the connection when the app is killed, or placed in the background. I even modified the Lifecycle Registrar object to maintain the connection during device rotation.

Here's a solution (a little dirty), you can use a boolean to know when you're switching the activity, set it to true just before you call startActivity(intent), and set it to false in onResume().
P.S, using onStop() is better than onPause() in your case, i believe you don't want to delete those cookies when the activity is partially visible

Delay between bindService() and onBind() when starting a Service

I'm facing a strange problem with my app. I have a LocationService that runs in the background. The way I manage its lifecycle is:
In onResume, every activity uses bindService(intent,serviceConnection, BIND_AUTO_CREATE) like that the service is automatically created when needed.
In onStop, every activity uses unbindService(serviceConnection)
This works because when switching activities, the new Activity onResume is called before the old Activity onStop method
The problem I have is, lets say I start from the home screen and I launch the app with an Activity that has a fragment in it. The order of the function call is as follows
Activity onCreate --> setContentView is called here
Activity onResume --> here bindService is called and should create the Service
Fragment onResume
Service onBind method is called
My question is why is there a something else between my bindServiceand onBind calls?? I have a feeling this has something to do with threading issues.

Well, this isn't a very good answer, but why wouldn't there be something else between your bindService() and onBind() calls? You seem to be assuming that when you call bind the system will immediately create and start your service, and no such guarantee is provided.
You haven't indicated whether yours is an IntentService, or just a regular Service, and this might affect the speed with which your service is launched, but my answer would be the same.
Also, I'm assuming that your ServiceConnection object is called, as expected, sometime after your service's onBind() returns.
I say this not based on having read anything definitive, but because I had a similar experience: I was surprised and annoyed at how long it took before my service was created and my ServiceConnection was called, even though I returned from the service's onBind very quickly. (My fragments needed data from the service to create the initial UI so any delay in the creation of the service meant a delay in displaying the initial UI to the user.)
In the end I settled upon launching my service using an Intent rather then a bind, e.g.
Intent si = new Intent( this, com.company.MyService.class );
si.setAction( MyService.SVC_BIND );
startService( si );
I then sent MyService.SVC_UNBIND in place of calling unbind. When I received the UNBIND intent in my service I cleanup and then call stopSelf(). These are user actions - I just named them for how I'm using them.
I believe this was faster, but looking back upon my comments from that code I don't have any specifics. Note that this meant no ServiceConnection, but I'm making some direct calls from the activities into the service, and using LocalBroadcastManager a fair bit.
Another option to consider (in order that your service be started more quickly, if that is your goal here??) is to launch it in Appliction.onCreate(), rather then waiting for Activity.onResume(). All of these options make it necessary to do some extra work to determine when to stop the service, compared to your current, normal, scheme where that is taken care of for you.

In my case, my issue was using android:process attribute for <service> element within Android Manifest, which is supposed to improve performance, but in reallity, maybe it does once the service is running, but it takes a very long while to reach onCreate() (and so also to reach onBind()). For me it was taking minutes. Now Apps and services run smooth and as expected.
More info:
https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/service-element

When should I start and stop my notification service?

I don't want the notification service to be working while the user is in the application. As of right now I have it starting in the onCreate and onResume methods and stopping in the onPause method. Is that correct?
Also, is it sufficient to specify the intent and execute stopService(intent) to stop it? There isn't a direct relationship between the start and stop methods except they reference the same class.
Thank you for any help.

Here is the activity lifecycle.
As you will see, onCreate() and onResume() are called before the activity is created so you do not want to start your notification service there. You should stop it instead. It is a good idea to do it once in onResume() because it is the entry point of your activity.
onPause() is where user navigates away from the activity so it is where you will want to start the service again.

Android: Service startService or Bind service

I have a service that is used by the main activity to do some background job and it's started using binding and unbinding.
In this way, when the activity start the service start and stop when the activity call unbind, this work well.
Now I need to have a CheckBoxpreference that once true will start the service and it must run in background despite the main activity will be close.
What is the best way to get this result? do I have to work on startservice/stopservice from preferences or I have to don't unbind from main activity when the preference is true?
if I start the service from the preference when already started from the binding of main activity, this will be multiple instance of same service ?
Thank you

Use a OnSharedPreferenceChangeListener so you'll get updates when the checkbox changes from selected to unselected (and vice versa).
You can use both the start/stopService mechanism and the bind/unbind mechanism at the same time. The service will start if either startService is called or if the service is bound, it will stop when stopService is called AND no activities are bound anymore.
I think this post will answer your question regarding services that have already been started.

Stopping and starting a Service based on application state

I have a Service which tracks the location of the user. Currently, the Service boots when the application starts and stops when the application terminates. Unfortunately, if users keep the application in the background, the Service never stops and drains battery.
I would like the Service to stop when my application is not in the foreground. I was hoping the Application class would let me Override onPause and onResume handlers, but it does not have them. Is there another way I can accomplish this?

I haven't tested this yet, but it looks like if you use Context#bindService() (instead of Context#startService()), the service should stop when no more activities are bound to it. (see Service lifecycle).
Then use onPause()/onResume() in each activity to bind/unbind from the service.
Alternatively, you could add a pair of methods on your service which tell it to start/stop listening for location updates and call it from each activity's onResume()/onPause(). The service would still be running, but the location updates wouldn't be draining the battery.

Reading all the above answers I would suggest Simply add a boolean global flag for each activity & put it in your onResume & onPause & also while launching an Activity Something like this
public void onPause()
{
super.onPause();
activity1IsResumed = true;
}
&same for onResume
& similarly when launching a new Activity
startActivityForResult(myintent ,0);
activity2IsResumed = true;
activity1IsResumed = false;
then in your Service simply check
if(activity1IsResumed || activity2IsResumed || activity3IsResumed)
{
//your logic
}
else
{
//another logic
//or dont run location tracker
}
& you are done!

You should override the onPause and onResume methods on your Activity. If you have multiple activities you may want to have a common base class for them and put the start/stop logic into the base class.

I have not tried this approach but I think you can override the home key of android device by using KeyEvent.KEYCODE_HOME and you can use stopService(Intent) to stop your service and when again application resumes, you can write startService(Intent) in the onResume() method of your Activity.
This way I think your service will only stop when user explicitly presses home button to take application in the background and not when he switches from one activity to another.

What I would suggest is overriding the onPause/onReume methods as others have said. Without knowing more about the flow of your application and interactions between Activities, I can't give much more information beyond guesswork.
If your Activities are persistent, however, my recommendation would be to utilize the Intents better when switching between Activities.
For instance, each Activity should have a boolean "transition" flag. So, when you move from one Activity to the next, you set up an Intent extra:
intent.putExtra("transition",true);
Followed in the receiving Activity by: (in onCreate)
intent.getBooleanExtra("transition",false);
This way, for each Activity that launches, you can know whether it has come from another Activity, or if it has been launched from a home screen launcher. Thus, if it gets a true transition, then onPause should NOT stop the service--that means you will be returning to the previous Activity after it returns. If it receives no "transition" extra, or a false transition, then you can safely assume there is no Activity underneath it waiting to take over for the current one.
On the first Activity, you will simply need to stop the service if you are switching to another Activity, which you should be able to figure out programmatically if one Activity is started from another.

It sounds like the real problem is how to only stop the service when you go to an activity that isn't one of your own? One way would be to in your onPause method to stop the activity. Do this for all your activities. Then override your startActivity method. And in here do a conditional test to confirm that you are purposefully navigating to one of your own. If your are set a flag to true.
Now go back to your on pause overridden method. And only stop your service if the flag is not equal to true. Set the flag to false.
All events that navigate away will close your service. Navigating to your own will leave it intact.
Do the overriding in a base class that all your activities extend.
Writeen in my andolroid. Will post ezaple later.

Try using the Bound Services technique to accomplish this.
Bound Services | Android Developers
You can use bound services in a way such that the service will stop when no activities are bound to it. This way, when the app is not in the foreground, the service will not be running. When the user brings the app back to the foreground, the Activity will bind to the service and the service will resume.

Create methods registerActivity() and unRegisterActivity() in your Application object and implement first method in all you acts onResume() and second in acts onPause().
First method add activity to List<Activity> instance in your app object, unRegisterActivity() checks size of list in every call if==0 stopService();.