Develop Reference

Opening A Specific Activity based on parameters in a URI

I'm using Xamarin.Android to build an app for a customer that's meant to be supplementary to another app. The idea is that once they reach a point in their workflow where my app steps in, they will click a button inside their app that will launch my app, and will open an activity from my app based on some attached parameters.
My problem is that in the "calling" app, all that's exposed for me to work with is a parameterized URI that's passed directly to Android, so I have no means of creating and passing an Intent object. I can change the URI it sends to be whatever I like, so I've already added an intent filter that looks for the custom scheme myapp://.
I am new to SO, so I apologize if this question has been answered elsewhere, but I have looked for a few hours and in my searches so far, all I've seen are answers related to how to call another app from my own. The question I have is... how do I parse that request on the other end and know not only which activity to open, but the rest of the data or parameters that were in the URI? Is it possible to open an activity based on a parameter in that URI, or can I only point it to one activity?
Thanks in advance!

What you have to do is quite simple in your URL somewhere pass your activity name that you want to navigate to
Then in your code maintain a enum with all the possible activities you wanna navigate to:
enum ActivityName
{
MainAcitivity,
SomeotherAcitivity
}
Then in your received notification get the string where you have given the name of the activity and do something like this :
If(youractivityName==ActivityName.MainActivity.toString())
{
StartActivity(typeof(MainActivity));
}
Revert in case of queries.

Constructing an on-the-fly Intent for a ShareActionProvider

I want to use a ShareActionProvider to provide a button/submenu in my ActionBar to share a file that is generated from by my app's database. The file that will be generated depends on which tab the user is currently viewing. Since the data in the database may change, the file cannot be generated at the time the Activity is created, but must be created when the user requests to send it.
To this end, I have been following the official Android guide. Unfortunately, according to the guide,
[...] if the action provider provides a submenu of actions, then your
activity does not receive a call to onOptionsItemSelected() when the
user opens the list or selects one of the submenu items.
There therefore appears to be no event that I can listen for to call setShareIntent() at the correct moment:
onOptionsItemSelected() is not fired, unless the ShareActionProvider button is consigned to the overflow menu, which defeats the point of using it at all
onMenuItemClick() is not fired, for unclear reasons
onShareTargetSelected() cannot be used to modify the intent. Setting a new intent only applies to the next time the item is selected.
It seems that a key event is not covered by the API. How can I achieve the functionality I need?

The file that will be generated depends on which tab the user is currently viewing
Update the Intent when the user changes tabs.
Since the data in the database may change, the file cannot be generated at the time the Activity is created, but must be created when the user requests to send it.
If this is truly a file (EXTRA_STREAM), use a Uri pointing to a ContentProvider of yours that will generate the file on demand.
If by "file" you mean just adjusting EXTRA_TEXT, do that as the user changes the data (e.g., TextWatcher on EditText).
Though I agree that ShareActionProvider ideally would have a "dynamic" mode where, when the user taps it, it asks you for the Intent at that point. I haven't seen any way to do that.

Adding activity context to search suggestion Intent

First some background.
In my edit item activity I have added search functionality to change of one of the item's data fields. (Its manufacturer and make). Since the user can select from quite a large amount of items, we have decided to use search with suggestions to change the manufacturer/model.
Using the normal Android search, from the edit activity I can override the onSearchRequested() method and add the current item's ID as part of the extra data. The actual updating of the data item, is done in the search activity. (I know, not the best idea, but my edit activity doesn't know what the user did in the search activity.)
This works fine for a simple search, but I can't seem to find a place to inject this context data (the item's id) for Search Suggestions.
I have read through the android docs and the closest I have come across is SUGGEST_COLUMN_INTENT_EXTRA_DATA column for the resultant row in my suggestion, but since my search content provider also doesn't have any context of what item I am editing, it doesn't seem like it will solve my problem. The Intent is still launched from the suggestion by the Android system, and I can't seem to get the required context info added to it.
Is this even possible given that search suggestions seems to be geared towards context-less global searches i.e. Android's quick search?
For completeness sake: we are targeting platforms less than Android 3.0, so the functionality of SearchView is not available.

Good news: the Intent that the suggestions launch directly is the same one that the activity sets up in the call to 'onSearchRequested()'. Any context info can be set there. Can anyone find a reference to this in the docs?

Best Practice activity- switching and view- changing in android

I am still searching for the best solution howto use a layout with a menu and a toolbar and inflate or start activities in android. My question may sound confusing, but im trying to explain it in an example.
Lets say im programming an android app (surprise.. i really do)
My app can do following:
User can log in [3] or register [2]. If he logs in, a new activity starts and his dashboard will be shown. If he registers: an activity for the registrationprocess starts.
Registrationprocess: user puts in his desired username and password and presses a button to accept. His data will be formvalidated and if valid, a new activity starts where he can choose his settings. Backbutton works and data can be passed to the new activity. After the last registrationwindow data will be saved and dashboard started. Starting new Activities is fun!
Now THATS where it gets complicated. Dasboard has an 'actionbar'(top) and a 'toolbar' (bottom, like tabs). So everything should be viewed in the middle part of the viewport(from now called main view). No more activity switching :(, tho.
Currently each tabclick removes all views from the main view and adds its new view. Look great, can be animated and works like a charm. Except: its currently not dynamic.
So... i don't know how to solve it the best way. For example: i fetch data from a webservice, create a listview out of it and it's extending listactivity. This activity i can't start but this data need to be put into the main view. How can i do it the best way?
And is it efficient?
I'm practicing and it's actually my first small discussion i want to start. So... FIGHT! ;)
UPDATE:
I've seen an interesting way to start activities and get results.
Launching activity through intents
. Is it possible to insert new/ update views after activity started? I would then generate my results in a separate activity. Update the view. Return back to 'dashboard' and load the view that was just updated. Possible? Or inefficient? And how can i update a view out of another activity? There is so much i need to learn :/
UPDATE2:
A good example of an app that has done it: Google+
Too bad i don't have their sourcecode ;)
UPDATE3:
What is best?
load a new activity, disable animation and set selected toolbox tab +
disable backbutton functionality
startActionForResults, fetch results and update current view (still don't really know how that would be possible)
viewFlipper onflip changing+updating data in flipped view.
I still don't know any efficient solution. Or am i missing something essential? I've just finished my ListActivity to fetch data from my webservice. But it still runs in a separate activity. How can i implement it into my "main view" now? Ofcourse... i could set a list my custom adapter. But currently im updating and fetching data from the server when i create the listactivity.
Im afraid this could be the only answer i'll get: Embed external Intent in main Activity
UPDATE4: I'm trying something.
Based on nininho's answer (thank you!) im trying the following approach:
Start Dashboardactivity and create a ViewFlipper.
Each Toolbarclick represents a certain ViewFlipper page.
Each Page has a Listadapter implemented and shows different results (different webservice queries). (ListView, GridView, with profileimage, without profileimage)
On Toolbarclick start AsyncTask or Service and notify List in current Page that data has changed. (ofcourse IF data has changed). Switch to page that was clicked.
Implement updatefeature. On scroll to bottom of list = fetch more data and add it. Update other lists automatically after 5min. or update list on update-button click.
PROs so far: Backbutton standalone for whole activity. Page-flip-animation possible. Async updating of lists and still possible to switch to another list.
CONs: ... someone has any? What about efficiency of such an approach? Does the ViewFlipper carry all the information so the performance would go down or does the viewflipper recycle its Views (like ListView)?
UPDATE5:
If i have some time i will make everything here more read- and discussable. Don't be mad at me for reading my rubbish ;)

From what I understand you want your app to start, fetch some data from the internet and after show this data on the main screen.
I don't see the need of a second activity to fetch the data because from your explanation you want to use it only to fetch the data, so the best approach would be:
Create one Activity (your dashboard)
Start an AsyncTask or Service on the background to fetch the data.
When the fetch ends, notify the activity that it ended.
Change your dashboard to show the list (you can use a ViewSwitcher if you want some animation or just create a layout with the list invisible and then change to visible).
ps: you can use a ListView outside of a ListActivity, just create a ListAdapter to create the ListView items and add this as the adapter for the ListView.

Android Tabs & Intents

I have a auto-complete textbox in which the user makes a selection. From here I want to load a tabbed layout which is based on the user selection. The problem is I cant figure out a clean way to pass that selection to each of the tabs. At the moment I can pass an intent to the 'tabhost' activity and then pass to each child activity explicitly, however this just seems like messy iterative code to me! So basically how can I pass my intent data bundles to the tabs activities cleanly & efficiently! Psuedo code is also very welcome ;)
Cheers guys

Sounds like you need to broadcast some information. You than will be able to set broadcast receivers in any activity/service you would like to get notified.
Read more online about Broadcastreceiver and about send broadcast

You can store the selection as SharedPreference and then just obtain the value from any activity. Second option that comes in mind is saving the selected value on the Application context which is also easily accessible from any activity.