Develop Reference

How to display an activity over the lock screen?

I know an activity will get killed when the screen is locked. So wanna use service i guess. how to display an activity or ring a sound over the lock screen by pressing power button twice? I tried many questions related to it here but i don't find solution at all.
Here is the question I posted before.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28242776/toast-is-not-displayed-over-the-lock-screen

to show your Activity on lock screen you need to register reciever for off/on screen, then in onReceive() method start your activity on lock screen and keep screen on and ... .
see this Link . it should help you.

call this method at your Activity onCreate()
public void aboveLockScreen() {
Window window = getWindow();
window.addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TURN_SCREEN_ON
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_DISMISS_KEYGUARD);
}

Start activity when screen is off

I have set up an AlarmManager to start up an activity. This activity also plays a sound, similar to an alarm app or an incoming call.
It works ok if the screen is on, even if the screen is locked.
If the screen is off, it doesn't work at all. I tried using the following as the first thing in onCreate
getWindow().setFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TURN_SCREEN_ON, WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TURN_SCREEN_ON);
If the screenlock is not enabled, this turns on the screen and I can see my activity closing. I can't hear the sound playing. If the screenlock is enabled, the screen won't turn on at all.
Sometimes I get the following, but not always:
07-18 23:52:13.685: E/OpenGLRenderer(14148): GL_INVALID_OPERATION
How can I make it start properly when the screen is off?

I got my answer partially from here.
lock = ((KeyguardManager) getSystemService(Activity.KEYGUARD_SERVICE)).newKeyguardLock(KEYGUARD_SERVICE);
powerManager = ((PowerManager) getSystemService(Context.POWER_SERVICE));
wake = powerManager.newWakeLock(PowerManager.FULL_WAKE_LOCK | PowerManager.ACQUIRE_CAUSES_WAKEUP, "TAG");
lock.disableKeyguard();
wake.acquire();
getWindow().addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_DISMISS_KEYGUARD
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TURN_SCREEN_ON
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_ALLOW_LOCK_WHILE_SCREEN_ON);

A while back I read that your app must be in full screen for the FLAG_TURN_SCREEN_ON to work.
"** One important note. Your activity must be full screen in order for the above flag combination to work. In my app I tried to use these flags with an activity which is not full screen (Dialog Theme) and it didn't work. After looking at the documentation I found that these flags require the window to be a full screen window." -Wake Android Device up
Quote from someone who posted their about a similar issue with FLAG_X.

Look into running a service, activity is going to be stopped when not in foreground.
Also look into the Activity lifecycle. http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html

Starting activity from service on lock screen turns on the screen but does not show the activity itself

I'm trying to start an activity from a service I had already acquired the lock for as follows:
Intent i = new Intent(context, MyActivity.class);
i.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_USER_ACTION);
startActivity(i);
The activity manifest is declared as follows:
<activity
android:name=".MyActivity"
android:configChanges="orientation|screenSize|keyboardHidden|keyboard|navigation"
android:excludeFromRecents="true"
android:launchMode="singleInstance"
android:screenOrientation="nosensor"
android:showOnLockScreen="true"
android:taskAffinity=""
android:theme="#style/MyTheme" />
And finally, on onCreate() or on onAttachedToWindow() (I tried on both), I add the following flags:
final Window win = getWindow();
win.addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_DISMISS_KEYGUARD);
win.addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TURN_SCREEN_ON
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_ALLOW_LOCK_WHILE_SCREEN_ON);
The problem is that the first time I call startActivity() from my service, the screen turns on but the activity itself does not show up. It shows the lock screen instead. Every subsequent call of startActivity() works properly but I can't find a reason for this odd behavior.
I tried already suggestions to get a full wakelock instead of partial, change the flags and values in the manifest according to the following SO answers:
Android Activity Not Showing When Screen is Woken Up and Lock Screen Not Disabling
how to unlock the screen when BroadcastReceiver is called?
Programmatically turn screen on in android
Android Galaxy S4 -- Activity that is visible over lock screen
Note that my theme is not a dialog but a fullscreen activity.
Any other ideas?

I'm facing the same problem, after a lot of searching here and google, found this which unlocked the screen and popped my activity but it only works for me when the app is running (foreground/background).
import android.view.Window;
import android.view.WindowManager.LayoutParams;
Window window = this.getWindow();
window.addFlags(LayoutParams.FLAG_DISMISS_KEYGUARD);
window.addFlags(LayoutParams.FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED);
window.addFlags(LayoutParams.FLAG_TURN_SCREEN_ON);
i'm trying to start an activty when app is closed... (using broadcast receiver)
in the docs (for example here) and most of the answers on SO the flags are added this way:
getWindow().addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_DISMISS_KEYGUARD);
but when i tried the way it is like in the example it unlocked the screen instead of just turning on the screen.
hope this help . it still didn't solve my problem completely.
EDIT:
found this post which solved my problem.
there is a comment there on NOT using a dialog theme which solved it for me

Step 1: Add below code in your activity before
setContentView(R.layout.activity_about_us);
getWindow().addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON|
WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_DISMISS_KEYGUARD|
WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED|
WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TURN_SCREEN_ON);
Step 2: Lock your mobile than you will see activity in which you have added this code.
You can implement this if you want to open particular screen by notification occurrence like skype call.

Since my application already includes a Service, this is what I do: if the screen is locked, I register a broadcast receiver (a bit simpler than this one, since it reacts only on unlocking) that starts the Activity as soon as the screen gets unlocked.

Android Galaxy S4 -- Activity that is visible over lock screen

A few years ago, I wrote an alarm app that worked on Android 2, and I'm now trying to upgrade it to work on Android 4. Specifically, on the Samsung Galaxy S4.
On Android 2, if the phone was sleeping, it would wake the phone up and display a "Snooze or Dismiss" screen over the lock screen.
On Android 4, it wakes the phone up, but you have to unlock it, then open the notifications area, then click the alarm's notification, before you can hit "Dismiss."
I have always been using this code to do the waking:
getWindow().addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_DISMISS_KEYGUARD
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TURN_SCREEN_ON);
I have read 8 different stackoverflow questions on this matter. Most of them give the code above, which worked for me years ago in Android 2 but doesn't work in Android 4. But none of them have helped me solve this problem. Here are the questions that I read and tried:
Android: remove or disable programmatically the Lock Screen on Samsung Galaxy S2 device
How to display a fullscreen TYPE_SYSTEM_ALERT window?
How do I create an Activity that is visible on top of the lock screen
How to start a dialog (like alarm dimiss /snooze) that can be clicked without unlocking the screen
Android activity over default lock screen
android device locked, yet want alarm to sound and dialog to appear
Android dialog over lock screen
Show dialog with touch events over lockscreen in Android 2.3
Does anyone have any ideas about what's changed in Android 4 that may have caused this?
EDIT: Here is one of the simplest examples I've seen of an alarm dialog that doesn't come up "minimized." It does not, as written, appear over the lockscreen, but you can fix that with WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED
http://wptrafficanalyzer.in/blog/setting-up-alarm-using-alarmmanager-and-waking-up-screen-and-unlocking-keypad-on-alarm-goes-off-in-android/
It's written with a FragmentActivity and a DialogFragment, but it still works as an Activity. It uses an AlertDialog.Builder to make the dialog, and if you try to do it with an XML layout, it won't work. Why?

I figured it out, and the answer was very different from what I expected.
This piece of code was included in the alarm clock sample from Android 2, in the AlarmAlert.java Activity:
#Override
protected void onStop() {
super.onStop();
// Don't hang around.
finish();
}
For reference, you can see the file from the example code in Git's past right here, containing the above onStop function. It never caused a problem in Android 2.
But in Android 4, if the phone was off, this onStop would fire right before the phone woke up, effectively "minimizing" the Activity. Once I removed this function, it immediately worked again.
But I wonder, is this the problem that other people like #radley and #Guardanis are getting? It seems unlikely, but please let me know if this fixes your problems too.
If you're visiting this answer in the future, and you're getting this problem, what I would try is:
Take out any onStop functions.
Add this code to the Activity:
getWindow().addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_DISMISS_KEYGUARD
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TURN_SCREEN_ON);
Make sure you're using a full screen theme, and not a dialog theme.
This didn't make a difference for me, but you could try setting showOnLockScreen explicitly in the manifest: <activity android:name="com.example.MyActivity" android:showOnLockScreen="true"/>
A second thing that didn't make a difference for me but you might try is adding the flag WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN
I hope this helps other people!

In Kotlin,
For Api level 28 or less, you can simply add below method in your activity that needs to be opened:
override fun onAttachedToWindow() {
super.onAttachedToWindow()
toBeShownOnLockScreen()
}
private fun toBeShownOnLockScreen() {
window.addFlags(
WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_DISMISS_KEYGUARD
or WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON
)
if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.O_MR1) {
setTurnScreenOn(true)
setShowWhenLocked(true)
} else {
window.addFlags(
WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TURN_SCREEN_ON
or WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED
)
}
}
And to make it work on Android Pie and above, in additional to above step, we need to set in AndroidManifest as well:
<activity
android:name=".view.activity.LockScreenActivity"
android:showOnLockScreen="true"
android:showWhenLocked="true"
android:turnScreenOn="true" />
I have tested this code from Api level 21 to 29, and works like charm!

Not sure if this is the problem in all cases, but the documentation on ShowWhenLocked says it applies only to the top-most full-screen window. I had a window themed as a dialog which was not working, but it worked fine once I changed it to a regular full-screen window.

One of the questions you linked to has an answer that appeared to solve this issue for me.
This is the code I am using which appears to be working:
#Override
public void onAttachedToWindow() {
Window window = getWindow();
window.addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TURN_SCREEN_ON
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_DISMISS_KEYGUARD
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN);
super.onAttachedToWindow();
}
I'm also explicitly declaring this in the activity definition in the manifest:
<activity
android:name="com.example.MyActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:showOnLockScreen="true"
>
Android activity over default lock screen

Right - So I have been struggling with this one recently but with a 5.0.2 Galaxy Tab A. Unsurprisingly what works on every other device does not work on Samsung (this has been the case since the first Samsung Galaxy device, they break something new each release!)
The general solution for showing an Activity over the lock screen for most devices is
//wake up device and show even when on lock screen
getWindow().addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_DISMISS_KEYGUARD |
WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED |
WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TURN_SCREEN_ON |
WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON |
WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN);
However this does not work for samsung devices. Removing FLAG_DISMISS_KEYGUARD however does this trick.
Looking at the docs for this flag we have
Window flag: when set the window will cause the keyguard to be dismissed, only if it is not a secure lock keyguard. Because such a keyguard is not needed for security, it will never re-appear if the user navigates to another window (in contrast to FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED, which will only temporarily hide both secure and non-secure keyguards but ensure they reappear when the user moves to another UI that doesn't hide them). If the keyguard is currently active and is secure (requires an unlock pattern) than the user will still need to confirm it before seeing this window, unless FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED has also been set.
and for FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED we have
Window flag: special flag to let windows be shown when the screen is
locked. This will let application windows take precedence over key
guard or any other lock screens. Can be used with FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON
to turn screen on and display windows directly before showing the key
guard window. Can be used with FLAG_DISMISS_KEYGUARD to automatically
fully dismisss non-secure keyguards. This flag only applies to the
top-most full-screen window.
You can see they can be used together but it seems samsung will not bother with FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED if the device is locked and FLAG_DISMISS_KEYGUARD is present. My app requires a lock screen to be setup so removing the dismiss keyguard flag actually allows me to show full screen Activities over the lock screen. Yay for me, nay for samsung.

Show dialog with touch events over lockscreen in Android 2.3

I want to build a dialog which is visible on the lockscreen and can receive touch events. I built a window with WindowManager but only the TYPE_SYSTEM_OVERLAY Flag is shown over the lockscreen in GB (Android 2.3.7).
Is there a way to create a system overlay which is visible on the lockscreen and can receive touch events in Android 2.3.7?
There was a bug with FLAG_WATCH_OUTSIDE_TOUCH but I'm not sure how that affects me. Any ideas?

I do not think you can launch an activity each time when device is locked without binding your application as admin privilaged app programatically.
Once your app is admin privilaged app, you can programatically set password & lock the screen & then programatically unlock it using Device Policy Manager.
On top of that lock screen you can programatically launch your own activity & you can create your own unlocker & unlock device through that activity as you can get call backs via DeviceAdminReceiver.
Here is a good example for that & all you need is to create your own activity after you called DevicePolicyManager.lockNow(). Then it will appear on top of lock screen as normal activity plus extra control over native lockscreen.

Try this It may helps you,
getWindow().addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TURN_SCREEN_ON);
getWindow().addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED);
getWindow().addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON);
setContentView(R.layout.alertdialog);
And also, Android is a little bit of a contradiction. It's very open and as a developer you have access to anything, and it's up to you to use those powers for good or evil. When I say evil I don't mean malware. I mean apps that try to get cute and use things in ways they weren't meant to be used, like putting up notifications asking you to use the app more. The contradiction is that you don't actually have access to everything, there are a few parts the developers decided were so important that app couldn't mess with them. The lock screen is one of those parts. You can replace your home app all you want, but you never have to worry about your replacement lock screen failing and preventing you from accessing your phone.
Even if this were possible you would have more problems to deal with. Every lock screen is different, manufacturers can and do customize it so you have no guarantees your activity won't get in the way of unlocking the phone.
For touching outside of your dialog,
dialog.setCanceledOnTouchOutside(your boolean);

Finally I achieved the same. Don't go for activity, because android will not show lock screen behind your activity for security reason, so for service.
Below is my code in onStartCommand of my service
WindowManager mWindowManager = (WindowManager) getSystemService(WINDOW_SERVICE);
View mView = mInflater.inflate(R.layout.score, null);
WindowManager.LayoutParams mLayoutParams = new WindowManager.LayoutParams(
ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT,
ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, 0, 0,
WindowManager.LayoutParams.TYPE_SYSTEM_OVERLAY,
WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_SHOW_WHEN_LOCKED
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_DISMISS_KEYGUARD
| WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TURN_SCREEN_ON
/* | WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON */,
PixelFormat.RGBA_8888);
mWindowManager.addView(mView, mLayoutParams);