Can anyone suggest me how to hide and unhide an app icon? After hiding the icon I would like to launch the app if user called on specific number like 1234. How would I do that?
Well, as noted above, the first part of the question is a duplicate of Android: How to Remove/Uninstall application shortcuts from Home Screen? among others.
As for the second part, you need to use a BroadcastReceiver and that has been answered by Using Broadcast receiver to detect the outgoing calls among others.
Note however, that you need to deploy an intent filter in your manifest, as a BroadcastReceiver is called for all intents.
<receiver android:name=".OutgoingCallReceiver" >
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.NEW_OUTGOING_CALL" />
</intent-filter>
</receiver>
And add a permission as well:
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE" />
Finally, in Android 6.0 and above, this is a dangerous permission. You'll need to explicitly ask for it before you can use it. So it's a good idea not to remove the app from the home page before you get it.
Related
I am making an AccessibilityService to get package name of app where click events are registered. In my manifest do I need to ask for permission for
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.BIND_ACCESSIBILITY_SERVICE" />
or inside the service tag, like this :
<service
android:name=".ListenToEvents"
android:permission="android.permission.BIND_ACCESSIBILITY_SERVICE">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.accessibilityservice.AccessibilityService" />
</intent-filter>
<meta-data
android:name="android.accessibilityservice"
android:resource="#xml/accessibility_service_config" />
</service>
I am guessing I don't need both but if I ask for permission outside the services tag in uses permission the ide tells me this permission will make my app a system app. when the permission is inside the service tag, however, it doesn't raise any such warning.
I do enable the settings for the app after installing. The callback on events is not being called.
first of all I would like to know if my app is a system app which needs to be installed in the system partition of the android phone. any further help will be greatly appreciated. I have already looked at two projects on GitHub but they are too big to sort out the pertinent code. so please help with the code necessary to do the basic task, of lets say listening to a tap event.
thanks
When you are building your own Accessibility Service, when you execute the app, the service will become present in Settings->Accessibility under 'Services' section. You can then turn on your service and run it on any app you want. Regarding developing an accessibility service, refer to the following,
https://codelabs.developers.google.com/codelabs/developing-android-a11y-service/#2
https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/accessibility/service
For listening to clicks, I suggest going through 'Configuring the scroll button' section of Codelabs and using ACTION_CLICK instead of ACTION_SCROLL_FORWARD
To clarify about BIND_ACCESSIBILITY_SERVICE. You expose that permission in the service to guarantee that only the system can bind to your service. Only the system may use that permission.
This question may seem a trivial but I've been struggling with it.
I'm trying to start a service on boot and everything works fine if I start it at least once from the mainActivity (launch activity), something like:
AndroidManifest.xml
...
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED" />
...
<activity
android:name="com.example.mainActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name" >
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
<receiver android:name="com.example.bootReceiver" android:enabled="true" android:exported="false">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED"/>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.QUICKBOOT_POWERON" />
</intent-filter>
</receiver>
<service android:name="com.example.someService" android:enabled="true" android:exported="false"/>
...
bootReceiver.java
...
startService(new Intent(getApplicationContext(), com.example.someService.class));
...
mainActivity.java
...
startService(new Intent(getApplicationContext(), com.example.someService.class));
...
With the above code I'm able to run the service after every boot without any problems.
As a POC, I'm trying to start a service without any activity, or at least without the mainActivity, just by declaring the service on the AndroidManifest.xml or by creating new activity (invisible?) that is launched at the same time as the default launcher activity.
As far a I know, this isn't possible on android 3+ (4+?) due to security reasons.
Is there any way to achieve this ?
Can I start 2 activities from the AndroiManifest.xml when the user launches the app?
I'm sorry if my question isn't 100% clear, I've tried to explain it the best I could, if you cannot understand it, please leave a comment bellow. Tks.
As far a I know, this isn't possible on android 3+ (4+?) due to security reasons.
Android 3.1, actually, to help prevent drive-by malware.
Is there any way to achieve this ?
Something has to use an explicit Intent to invoke some form of IPC on one of your components, to move the app out of the so-called "stopped state" that is preventing you from receiving the broadcast. So, something needs to either:
start one of your activities via an explicit Intent, or
start one of your services via an explicit Intent, or
send a broadcast to one of your receivers via an explicit Intent
(I don't know if trying to connect to a ContentProvider will work, though arguably it should)
The key is the explicit Intent. That's why invoking an activity from a home screen launcher works, because the Intent used to start your activity will be an explicit one.
However, in the absence of such an activity, you would need to find something else that would use an explicit Intent to invoke one of your components. Certain specialized services (e.g., an input method) probably get invoked with an explicit Intent if and when the user activates that app's capability via the system Settings app. If you're a plugin for some other app, that other app might use an explicit Intent to work with one of your components. You can ask the user to install the Android SDK, learn how to use the command line, and invoke an adb shell am command to start one of your components. And that's about all I can think of off the top of my head. None are exactly general purpose solutions.
or by creating new activity (invisible?) that is launched at the same time as the default launcher activity
I have no idea what you think that would achieve. If the user starts up your launcher activity, you're already out of the stopped state and will receive broadcasts as normal.
I was expecting my app to load the BroadcastReceiver AutoStartOnBoot when I reboot my device.
I uninstall and install the app. Which means that all existing settings are deleted. I then power down the phone. And power it back up, the Broadcast receiver is never called.
I now, power down the device one more time and power it up again. Yet, broadcast receiver is not called.
I now launch the app once. Clear data. And power it down. I power it up. Now, the broadcast receiver is called.
Manifest
<receiver
android:name=".AutoStartOnBoot"
android:enabled="true"
android:exported="true"
android:permission="android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED" >
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED" />
<action android:name="android.intent.action.QUICKBOOT_POWERON" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
</intent-filter>
</receiver>
I have the permission setup
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED" />
Edit:
From your First two Points
1.I uninstall and install the app. Which means that all existing settings are deleted. I then power down the phone. And power it back up, the Broadcast receiver is never called.
2.I now, power down the device one more time and power it up again. Yet, broadcast receiver is not called.
Why it is not working??
Here your just installed the app but not launched.In android after first launch only all your manifest data is registered and all receivers work.But in your third case its working because you are launched the app so here all receivers gets registered.
For more check here Broadcast Receiver not working immediately after package installation
You have to add this permission outside of the <application> tag in manifest file
instead of this
<android:permission="android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED" >
Add this like
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED" />
The behavior that you describe is perfectly normal. Something needs to use an explicit Intent to start up one of your components before your manifest-registered receivers will work. Typically, that will be the user tapping on your home screen launcher icon.
See the Android 3.1 release notes for more about this.
All answers are correct. This behavior is as per expectation. The app is inactive when installed, until its manually launched by the owner. Only after that is the BOOT_COMPLETED broadcast receiver registered to the OS.
Unless we put the app in the system folder, which keeps all apps in active state. We are device company, adb push your.apk /system/app is possible for us.
Some interesting links, here and here
I am trying to develop a setup wizard for Android, as I would like to add some functionality to the one existing from Google. Is it possible to somehow interact with the Android wizard? Because when I have searched for information I've seen that not using Google's Wizard might cause some trouble, regarding gmail account activation and so on.
If not, could an activity be called immediately before or after Google's wizard? Would it be enough to just listen to the BOOT_COMPLETED event?
Thank you very much in advance!
I don't know how you will use this unless you are making a rom and can add your app to system but basically you make your setupwizard add-on a Home activity with action MAIN, and categories HOME,DEFAULT. You should also set the priority higher than 1. If any of this is unclear you can look at the Launcher source/manifest that is publicly available.
When your activity is done it should deactivate itself with the PackageManager (setComponentEnabledSetting) and that should be it.
You can add additional activities that start the first time the phone is boot up. You just have to mimic the same behavior as Google's SetupWizardActivity.
Here's the relevant portion in the AndroidManifest.xml for reference:
<activity android:theme="#style/InvisibleNoTitle" android:label="#string/setup_wizard_title" android:name="SetupWizardActivity" android:excludeFromRecents="true" android:launchMode="singleTop" android:immersive="true">
<intent-filter android:priority="5">
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<action android:name="android.intent.action.DEVICE_INITIALIZATION_WIZARD" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.HOME" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
This will allow you to run your application before/after SetupWizardActivity, depending on your priority. I believe higher numbers for android:prioirity run first, but don't quote me on that.
You can find out the AndroidManifest xml for various Android-related apks using apktool. You can even inspect some of apks you picked up from the Play Store or whatever other sources.
I have implemented an app that is basically a custom app store for updating and launching a family of related apps. It also needs to update itself, which works, but the app is killed without warning during the install process. I want to automatically restart the app in this case so that the user can continue to use it immediately after an update.
So I made a separate application including only a single Broadcast Receiver that listens for package events for the first app's package name and starts a new activity. That receiver is never called:
<application android:icon="#drawable/ic_launcher"
android:label="#string/app_name">
<receiver android:name=".AppUpdateReceiver">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.PACKAGE_REPLACED"/>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.PACKAGE_ADDED"/>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.PACKAGE_INSTALL"/>
<data android:scheme="package" />
</intent-filter>
</receiver>
In searching for similar implementations I have seen directly contradictory information on whether an application with only a receiver will ever execute, and whether a receiver will be called if its app is not already running. I've even come across example code of an application containing only a receiver, with a manifest very similar to my own. So what do I need in this application to ensure that the receiver is called whenever another package is installed?
If there is a better solution, I'd be happy to hear it.
Depending on the version of Android, you might need to start an application component in order for the BroadcastReceiver to be registered. By this I mean there will need to be a launcher Activity which must be started manually by the user.
From Honeycomb (I think) onwards it isn't possible to have application components 'active' unless the app has been manually started in some way. The reasoning behind this is the potential for insecure code executing without the end-users' knowledge.
I suspect this is what you're experiencing. To test it, add a simple "Hello World" Activity to the app that has the BroadcastReceiver in it. Launch the Activity and then check to see if the BroadcastReceiver then gets called after your other package is updated.