Android, preview of minimized app in task switcher [duplicate] - android

I'm wondering how to customize the Image for My App to Home Screen image when My app is in background mode, that is when user navigates between Apps in recent apps option where a small screen shot for all running apps is visible.
Eg: Image Attached for more clarity.

See the following questions:
Is there a way to change the thumbnail of an app in the android task
switcher (long press on home button)
How to force app to create
thumbnail (snapshot) for recent apps list?
How do I prevent
Android taking a screenshot when my app goes to the background?
So theoretically there are two potential solutions:
Override Activity.onCreateThumbnail() to customize the thumbnail.
Add FLAG_SECURE to the window to prevent thumbnails (and screenshots).
Activity.onCreateThumbnail() sounds awesome until you realize it's been broken since Android 4.0.3 when the method call was commented out. See above posts or be direct, see the Android source code:
// First create a thumbnail for the activity...
// For now, don't create the thumbnail here; we are
// doing that by doing a screen snapshot.
info.thumbnail = null; //createThumbnailBitmap(r);
Currently, there is no easy way to customize the thumbnail.
So that really only leaves FLAG_SECURE. This doesn't allow you to customize the thumbnail, but rather prevents it, e.g. password forms and sensitive information. There's a downside to using the flag- it will also prevent screenshots, screen capture, and mirrored displays.

Related

Customize Android App Screen Image which is visible in switch between Apps screen

I'm wondering how to customize the Image for My App to Home Screen image when My app is in background mode, that is when user navigates between Apps in recent apps option where a small screen shot for all running apps is visible.
Eg: Image Attached for more clarity.
See the following questions:
Is there a way to change the thumbnail of an app in the android task
switcher (long press on home button)
How to force app to create
thumbnail (snapshot) for recent apps list?
How do I prevent
Android taking a screenshot when my app goes to the background?
So theoretically there are two potential solutions:
Override Activity.onCreateThumbnail() to customize the thumbnail.
Add FLAG_SECURE to the window to prevent thumbnails (and screenshots).
Activity.onCreateThumbnail() sounds awesome until you realize it's been broken since Android 4.0.3 when the method call was commented out. See above posts or be direct, see the Android source code:
// First create a thumbnail for the activity...
// For now, don't create the thumbnail here; we are
// doing that by doing a screen snapshot.
info.thumbnail = null; //createThumbnailBitmap(r);
Currently, there is no easy way to customize the thumbnail.
So that really only leaves FLAG_SECURE. This doesn't allow you to customize the thumbnail, but rather prevents it, e.g. password forms and sensitive information. There's a downside to using the flag- it will also prevent screenshots, screen capture, and mirrored displays.

Android, Two applications active at the same time [duplicate]

In Android , Is it possible to display one application(rendering Video) as a floating screen in one half of the screen. and at the same time interacting with another application(e.g chat application or any other application. ).The floating screen appliction will be my application so that it will allow the user to do multitasking.
The idea is to keep the surfaceview of the application, which is rendering the video, on top, and at the same time interact with other applications.e.g gallery or any other application..
If by "two active applications" then you mean real applications (i.e. with activities, back stack, &c) active at the same time, then no (except in some specialized devices, with custom APIs).
However, there is a trick you can use to achieve a similar effect. Applications with the android.permission.SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW (displayed as "draw over other apps" in Play Store) can create windows from a service and show them. So you could probably get the effect you want with this method.
There is an open source library called StandOut which provides this behavior in an easy to use manner. You might want to take a look at it.
In short, the answer is no. There is no way currently for multiple apps to be visible on the screen at the same time.
You could theoretically reuse code over multiple different applications, so you could create a video window that could play video, while simultaneously showing a text editor fragment that allows notes to be taken, and you can send data between different applications using an Intent, but unlike modern desktop computers, only one application can currently have the focus of the screen at a time in Android.

Is it possible to have two active applications in android?

In Android , Is it possible to display one application(rendering Video) as a floating screen in one half of the screen. and at the same time interacting with another application(e.g chat application or any other application. ).The floating screen appliction will be my application so that it will allow the user to do multitasking.
The idea is to keep the surfaceview of the application, which is rendering the video, on top, and at the same time interact with other applications.e.g gallery or any other application..
If by "two active applications" then you mean real applications (i.e. with activities, back stack, &c) active at the same time, then no (except in some specialized devices, with custom APIs).
However, there is a trick you can use to achieve a similar effect. Applications with the android.permission.SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW (displayed as "draw over other apps" in Play Store) can create windows from a service and show them. So you could probably get the effect you want with this method.
There is an open source library called StandOut which provides this behavior in an easy to use manner. You might want to take a look at it.
In short, the answer is no. There is no way currently for multiple apps to be visible on the screen at the same time.
You could theoretically reuse code over multiple different applications, so you could create a video window that could play video, while simultaneously showing a text editor fragment that allows notes to be taken, and you can send data between different applications using an Intent, but unlike modern desktop computers, only one application can currently have the focus of the screen at a time in Android.

take picture from device screen content (not a view) programmatically in android app

i'm developing an app and need to make Activity that take snapshot from current content of device screen.
note: i dont want take picture from my activity content or some view, i want take a picture from all of device screen content. ( like home screen or every applications that are on foreground). i googled many times and search so much.
there is an example code:
View screen = (View)findViewById(R.id.screen);
screen.setDrawingCacheEnabled(true);
bmScreen = screen.getDrawingCache();
showBitmap(bmScreen); // function that show my bitmap image
with this code can capture my activity's view, but i dont want capture onlye my activity. i want make a thread that capture device screen with all of its contents.
can everybody help me please?
You can't do this, mostly for security reasons. If this were possible, some rogue app could silently capture and send somewhere screenshots of everything you are doing on your device.
Why this is not available to non-system apps:
Android let's SDK applications do certain things, and explicitly forbids others. An app is not supposed to read another app's data and similarly an app cannot capture another app's screen. Google has explicitly said that third party apps are not supposed to take screencaptures of other apps. The lack of screen capture API's is a deliberate decision, not an omission. ICS offers screenshot functionality, but it is implemented by the system, and requires a hardware trigger in order to make sure it cannot be started or accessed by third party apps.
While there are ways to do this, they either require root (to read the graphics buffer directly, which is device-dependent), or are not guaranteed to work on all devices/versions.

Any way to hide Android home screen icons to show Live Wallpaper?

As Android live wallpapers are becoming more prevalent, and developers are doing more with them, a question coming up more and more is how to hide the home screen icons temporarily while the user interacts with the wallpaper.
For this to work, the icons would have to be removed temporarily – not just made invisible, since a tap on an invisible icon would still run the app.
Also, it would be ideal to have a universal solution that works across customs launchers, not just the Android stock launcher.
This question was already asked on StackOverflow, and the answer was that you cannot do this. But this is clearly not correct, as there are at least two programs on Android Market that do exactly this: Show Off (Your Live Wallpaper) and The Cleaner (Show Wallpaper)
Is there a way to hide Android home screen icons, and then later put them back in place?
You can launch an activty which backgroung will be your live walpaper, and finish the activty upon touch... Just a thought...
Edit:
1st comment answer:
Preventing the delay:
You should be more "gentle" in the onCreate() method...
Try creating the minimum as possible in the onCreate(), like, just displaying the basic background...
in the end of the onCreate function, set an alarm (i.e. by AlarmManager) to call some BroadcastReceiver/Activity after half a second or so (with AlarmManager) to set the rest of the live wallpaper graphics... that way you don't have to worry about the delay.
This would have to be a completely new launcher. This is not possible without this I don't think. Sorry. However; to be absolutely sure though you'd have to look at the Launcher2 package in the android source and look through files like Homescreen.java. I'll look into it later on 2.3.3 for you and see what I find.
Try using the zoom gesture as you would to zoom in on a web page (reverse pinch). And you guessed it, the opposite makes everything come back.

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