How to come back to First activity without its onCreate() called - android

I have 3 activity . Activity A ,Activity B, Activity C.
This is the flow A->B->C.
Now i want to come to activity A from C .(i.e C->A) without getting its onCreate() called of Activity A.
so far my code is:But it will call onCreate() of ActivityA.
I want to call Restart().
Intent intent=new Intent(ActivityC.this,ActivityA.class);
intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
startActivity(intent);
finish();

Two cases:
If you want to keep other activities live and just want to bring A to front, just use intent flag FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT.
If you don't want to clear all activities and want existing instance of A at top, then use intent flags FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP and FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP.
Note : If you use only FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP, then onCreate will be called.

Keep android:launchMode="singleTask" in manifest at activity declaretion
An Activity with singleTask launchMode is allowed to have only one instance in the system
If instance already exists, i will not call 'onCreate' it will call 'onNewIntent' method.
See http://androidsrc.net/android-activity-launch-mode-example/ for better understand about launch modes.

Although setting the launch mode to singleTask will work, use of that launch mode is discouraged. The documentation for launch mode indicates singleTask is "not recommended for general use".
The desired behavior can be achieved using Intent flags FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP and FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP:
Intent intent=new Intent(ActivityC.this,ActivityA.class);
intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP);
startActivity(intent);
finish();
Activity A will not be recreated and will receive the intent via onNewIntent().

Use SingleTask launch mode for Activity A.
New intent will be delivered to existing instance.

Related

Android - Bring an activity to the front from application class

I am trying to bring an activity to the front. I found many questions similar to this but none of them actually works.
I always hold a reference to the current activity in a variable in application class. While the application is running in the background (after onPause fires), if any message arrives, I need to bring the same activity to the front and display the message. The only way I got it worked is..
Intent i = new Intent(mCurrentActivity, JoboffersActivity.class);
i.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
startActivity(i);
The issue I have got with this, is that it recreates the activity which I wanted to avoid. I tried singleInstance and singleTask both in the manifest. If I do not add FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP, on back key press it takes me to the previous instance of the same activity. Even if I add sigleInstance it creates two instances of the same activity. If I do not add FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK then it shows an error Calling startActivity() from outside of an Activity context requires the FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK flag
Try to add another flag FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP to your intent.
According to Android documentation, combination of this 2 flags:
i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP);
brings the current instance of Activity to the front.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Intent.html#FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP

Handling Previous Activities

I have a spinner that essentially starts multiple new activities based on onItemSelect();
However, what's happening on my app is if I start the same activity multiple times I have to hit the Android back button multiple times. How do I start the same activity and kill the previous one so that I don't have multiple layouts sitting there open?
Set android:noHistory=true for your <activity> in Manifest.xml. See here
Or, programatically:
Intent intent = new Intent(this, Activity.class);
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
startActivity(intent);
Use the FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP activity flag.
When you start a new activity you need to finish your old activity. So when you call your new intent:
startActivity(intent);
finish();
That will end the current activity.
You might want to consider setting the activity launchmode to "singletop" (this can be done in the Android Manifest). Then instead of creating a new activity, it will call OnNewIntent() of the existing activity.

FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP calls onCreate() instead of onResume()

So I have an abstract class extended through the entire app that overrides the back key to reorder Activity A to the front (With the flag).
So, it would be:
A > B > anywhere, and the back key should bring me back to A
I'm using the FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP, but it is entirely refreshing A for some reason and I don't want that.
So: Flag_activity_clear_top is reloading the onCreate() rather than onResume(). What gives?
If you want the activity to just be brought to the top without restarting it set the launchMode of the activity to singleTop in the manifest. You will receive a call to onNewIntent when the activity is being brought to the top. onNewIntent is called before onResume. If you only want this behavior for the specific intent you can add the FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP(in addition to FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP) to the intent with the addFlags call instead of the manifest.
Intent intent = new Intent(CurrentActivity.this, ActivityNeedOnTop.class);
intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP);
startActivity(intent);
CurrentActivity.this.finish();
From the API docs for FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP
For example, consider a task consisting of the activities:
A, B, C, D. If D calls startActivity() with an Intent that
resolves to the component of activity B, then C and D
will be finished and B receive the given Intent,
resulting in the stack now being: A, B.
**The currently running instance of activity B in the above example
will either receive the new intent you are starting here in its
onNewIntent() method, or be itself finished and restarted with the new intent.**
So I think your activity is itself finished and restarted.

Clear all activities in a task?

I have a splash screen activity, then a login activity. My history stack looks like:
SplashActivity
LoginActivity
when the user successfully logs in via LoginActivity, I want to start WelcomeActivity, but clear the entire stack:
SplashActivity
LoginActivity // launches WelcomeActivity ->
WelcomeActivity
// but now all three are in the history stack, while I only
// want WelcomeActivity in the stack at this point.
Is there some flag I can use to do that?
// LoginActivity.java
Intent intent = new Intent(this, WelcomeActivity.class);
intent.addFlag(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK);
startActivity(intent);
finish();
Not sure if using the FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK will clear out all activities in my task or not. I can do this 'manually' by unwinding the stack by using startActivityForResult() calls, but will be more fragile and more code to maintain.
Thanks
Yes that should work fine. You could use:
FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP
FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP
FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK
FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK
which ensures that if an instance is already running and is not top then anything on top of it will be cleared and it will be used, instead of starting a new instance (this useful once you've gone Welcome activity -> Activity A and then you want to get back to Welcome from A, but the extra flags shouldn't affect your case above).
Intent intent = new Intent(this, NextActivity.class);
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK |
IntentCompat.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK);
startActivity(intent);
Use android:noHistory="true" on the splash activity in the manifest file.
<activity
android:name=".activity.SplashActivity"
android:theme="#style/theme_noActionBar"
android:noHistory="true">
finish() removes the activity from the stack. So, if you start LoginActivity and call finish() on SplashActivity, and then you do exact the same to start WelcomeActivity you will get the desired behaviour. No need to use extra flags.
Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY can work in your case too if you do not want the activity on the history stack.
Just do this to clear all previous activity in a task:
finishAffinity() // if you are in fragment use activity.finishAffinity()
Intent intent = new Intent(this, DestActivity.class); // with all flags you want
startActivity(intent)
In case that all of three activity is involved in the same app(same taskAffinity), you can pick either 1,2 or 3 below. otherwise you should pick 1,2 below.
If you don't want to return back SplashActivity from LoginActivity, you can define activity attribute noHistory in AndroidManifest.xml or you can set FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY into the intent to launch SplashActivity. if SplashActivity is started from Launcher, you should pick way to set activity attribute noHistory.
If you don't want to return back LoginActivity from WelcomeActivity, you can use either activity attribute noHistory or FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY like number 1 above.
If you want to clear back stack on specific situation, you can use FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK in conjunction with FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK(FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK always must be used in conjunction with FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK). But, if the activity being started is involved in other app(i.e different taskAffinity), the task will be launched other task after the task is cleared, not current task. so make sure that the activity being launched is involved in the same app(taskAffinity).

FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP and android:launchMode="singleInstance"

I think I've just found a really strange bug... But it can just be somekind of feature that I never heard of.
On my application if I have any Activity on the AndroidManifest with android:launchMode="singleInstance" when you try to "clean" the stack to a certain point with the following code:
Intent intent = new Intent(this, Xpto.class);
intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP
| Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
startActivity(intent);
It goes to that activity. But when you press back, it returns to the previous.that should have been finished...
Example:
A -> B -> C
Then from C I call A with Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP| Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP having A singleInstance on the Manifest. It goes to A but it only brings it to front. And does not finishes C and B.
Can somebody explain this behaviour?
The Xpto class I'm calling is at the time the root activity of the stack.
from reading this thread:
http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers/browse_thread/thread/5eb400434e2c35f4
it seems that:
"The currently running instance of activity B in the above example will
either receive the new intent you are starting here in its onNewIntent()
method, or be itself finished and restarted with the new intent. If it
has declared its launch mode to be "multiple" (the default) and you have
not set FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP in the same intent, then it will be
finished and re-created; for all other launch modes or if
FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP is set then this Intent will be delivered to
the current instance's onNewIntent(). "
which means that you need to set your launchMode to multiple instance, and use only FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP.
Intent intent = new Intent(this, Xpto.class);
intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
startActivity(intent);
In the scenario you described, activity's B and C are not finished when you start activity A (which is the root activity). The documentation describes that with launch mode of singleInstance and the flag FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP set, activities B and C will NOT be finished. If you want to have activities B and C finished, then you must set the launch mode to multiple instance and NOT set the flag FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP.

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