Let's say you have an activity A that use an object mObject (e.g. here a client for an API).
This object constructor check whether or not the user is already identified, and if he's not, start a login form activity (B) that prompt user for credentials so that the API can just log him.
How can you do that?
I've thought just asking for the Context in the constructor but actually it doesn't implement startActivityForResult so I either have to cast it or to actually ask for a Activity object.
Even if I do this however, the result will be sent on the onActivityResult callback (of the activity A) and not in the object (while ideally, I would like to do it "synchronously" : when the activity is returned, store it in an object and continue the execution of the constructor).
What would be a good way to do this, then?
No, it's not reasonable to do that in a constructor.
It's also not a great idea to have a non-Activity class use the Activity's Context to start another activity.
The most straightforward way would be for Activity A to use mObject to determine whether login is required, and if so Activity A should start Activity B (startActivityForResult is fine if you need to pass data back to Activity A from Activity B).
How you communicate the login data to mObject is up to you, but you'll probably want mObject to be shared somehow between Activity A and Activity B.
There are a few ways to do that.
You could have mObject as a member of your Application class.
Or you could have mObject just be a class with static data and static methods.
Or you could use a dependency injection framework, and inject mObject into both activities.
Related
I have many activities ( say activity A, B, C) calling a single activity ( say activity D) for a result (startActivityForResult(..)).
But want to do something according to the caller activity in the callee activity ( activity D) before the callee sets result and finishes.
The task I want to do needs to use data variables of the calling activity, so now I am planning to pass a callback class similar to this:
public interface myCallBack implements Seriabizable{
public void myMethod();
}
from each caller to the callee on launching the activity;
intent.putExtra(CALL_BACK_OBJECT_KEY, new myCallBack(){
#Override
public void myMethod(){
//code that uses instance variables of caller class
}
});
of course the callback is seriabizable.
myCallback = getIntent().getSerializableExtra(CALL_BACK_OBJECT_KEY);
Now the callee activity ( activity D) will do the task like this:
myCallback.myMethod();
But is this the right way of doing it? Is it good to pass callback class across activities? What other options are available?
Or is there a way to call methods of the caller activity directly? In this case I will force the caller activities to implement MyCallBack interface.
NB:
The reason I dont want to pass the data needed from caller to callee is, the data needed by the task is completely different for each caller activity and also some time big. So I dont to mess the callee activity with those data variables.
What you suggest may work. However it looks complicated and not a good practice.
If you just want to pass data accross activity, why don't you use intent.putExtra with the data you want to pass accross activities ?
If the data you want to pass are too large, or too complex, to be pass like that, maybe you should implement your application another way. You could for instance use a Service. You wil have a three services (one for each activity, or use case). These services will implement a common interface or herit from the same class. Your calling actvity (A, B or C) will start the appropriate service and the service will store the datas. When you start the activity D, this activity will bind with the service. Then she will be able to fully access all datas or objects from the service.
I need to pass an object between 2 activities that have no connection between them (meaning, neither of them calls the other).
My Main_activity extends TabActivity. I have 2 tabs : CurrencyList (extends ListActivity implements OnItemSelectedListener) and CurrencyCalculator extends Activity.
I also have class currencyData that saves data about different currencies.
In the CurrencyList activity I created a new currencyData object and initiate it with data.
How can I pass it also to the CurrencyCalculator activity?
2 quick ways:
1. use an static method in your activity to retrieve current ticket id
2. Design and implement an interface and register the fragments as listeners from the activity
Static Method is preferable for large data.
If there is absolutely no connection between them, then one method of accessing data in different Activity classes would be to declare the data members as static class members. Keep in mind that static objects from Activities persist even after you destroy the activity and Android keeps this around for some time even after the you leave the application.
These might not be the easiest ways (just some alternate approaches to the two answers given). You can use a Handler or a BroadcastReceiver to pass the data to the other activity through an intent.
Note
that your object would have to implement either Serializable or
Parcelable if you want to pass it through an intent. I have used
Serializable before and as long as your object does not have any
nested custom objects, you actually have to do no additional work.
Also the assumption is that the receiving activity is alive and is
able to receive the broadcast and/or message.
Another approach would be to write the object to a file (again it would need to be serializable) and read it back in the other activity.
I'm very new to Android programming (and Java for that matter) coming from an iOS background.
What I am trying to do, is pass a pointer to a Fragment from one Activity to another.
Basically, I have a starting activity called BeginActivity that handles a couple of Fragments for login and register screens. Once logged in, I load up the main activity of the app called TabsFragmentActivity using this code:
public void loggedIn() {
Intent intent = new Intent(this, TabsFragmentActivity.class);
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
this.startActivity(intent);
finish();
}
I'm using FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP as I dont want the user to go back without actually logging out first.
Now the problem:
In BeginActivity I have a pointer to a fragment that holds the users data. I am using it like a singleton, that the first few view fragments can access from BeginActivity.
I need to pass this same object to the new TabsFragmentActivity before I call finish() on it.
How do I do this?
I know I can use putExtra() but I believe that is just for strings etc.. and not other Fragments.
Is there a way in the newly created TabsFragmentActivity that I can reference the BeginActivity to 'grab' the pointer?
Thanks
First of all, you should be sure about Fragments and Activity life cycle.
Fragments are designed to be reusable UI complex components. They look like activity, but you can reuse. So,you can have as many activities you need containing the same fragments, but not the same instances of these fragments.
If you just want to pass you user data for another activity you must use Bundle and putExtra(). Depending of the user data type can be necessary implements Serializable or Parcelable Interfaces, as #gheese said.
If you want to use the same UI appearence of your fragment on two or more activities, besides use Bundle and putExtra. Each activity that you want this behavior must contains a field whose is a Fragment and in the moment of starting this fragment you can use getActivity().getIntent().getExtra to get the user information and populate your fragment.
Basically you need to be able to pass your class via the intent, look at Serializable / Parcelable interfaces
This question has the answer you require
How to pass an object from one activity to another on Android
My launch activity starts up another activity whose launch is set to single instance. In this 2nd activity, I have a public method. I then start up a 3rd activity and that activity needs to access the public method in the 2nd activity. I don't want to use startActivity and pass it extras because I assume the onCreate will get called (or am I wrong?) and I need to avoid the 2nd activity from reinitializing itself.
When an activity is started using startActivity, is it possible to gain access to the underlying class instance itself and simply call the method?
I actually came up with a simple solution. As a matter of fact you can access the underlying class of an activity. First, you create a class that is used to hold a public static reference to activity 2. When activity 2 is created, in its onCreate method you store "this" in the static reference. Activity 2 implements an interface with the methods that you want available to any other activity or object. The static reference you hold would be of a data type of this interface. When another activity wants to call a method in this activity, it simply accesses the public static reference and calls the method. This is no hack but is intrinsic to how Java operates and is totally legitimate.
It is not a good idea.
As I can understand method from second activity is actually not connected to particular activity while you want to call it from another one. So carry the method out to other (non-activity) class (maybe static method) and use it from both activities.
It's not directly possible to gain access to activity object started using startActivity (without using some hacks). And frankly you shouldn't even trying to accomplish this.
One Activity component can cycle through several Activity java object while its alive. For example, when user rotates the screen, old object is discarded and new activity object is created. But this is still one Activity component.
From my experience, when you need to do things you described, there is something wrong with your architecture. You either should move part of activity's responsibilities to Service or to ContentProvider, or use Intents, etc. Its hard to recommend anything more specific without knowing more details.
No there is no way to pass a reference via startActivity() however you can use some sort of shared memory to keep reference to your Activity. This is probably a bad design. However passing an extra with your Intent will not cause onCreate, that is completely related to the lifecycle.
This is a pretty simple question, but I have been unable to find anyway to accomplish what I am trying to do...
I want to launch a new Activity to display some complex information. Because of the complexity, it is undesirable to serialize the information into the intent's parameters. Is it possible for the the new Activity to get a reference to the launching activity, so it can call its methods?
If you use a custom application class, you can store information that will be kept between the activities.
See a tutorial here for instance.
The lifetime of an Activity cannot be depended upon. In this case, one way of sharing data is to have a singleton which holds the data to be shared between the two activities.
You can add a public static field to the first activity containing this (the first activity).
But beware that the first activity could be destroyed by Android while you are using the second activity, so you will have to implement a fallback method if the first activity is destroyed.
And don’t forget to unset the public static variable in the onDestroy() callback of the first activity or you will leak memory.
Is it possible for the the new Activity to get a reference to the launching activity, so it can call its methods?
Please do not do that. Android can and will destroy activities to free up memory.
Complex information like you describe should not be owned by an activity. It should be held in a central data model, like you would in any other application. Whether that central data model is mediated by a Service or a singleton or a custom Application object depends a bit on the type of data, caching models, risks of memory leaks, and so on.
You can make your complex objects public and static in ActivityA, and access them in ActivityB like this:
MyCustomObjectType complexFromA = ActivityA.complexObject;
this will work, however while in ActivityB, you can't always be sure that static objects from ActivityA will exist(they may be null) since Android may terminate your application.
so then maybe add some null checking:
if(null == ActivityA.complexObject) {
//go back to ActivityA, or do something else since the object isn't there
}
else {
//business as usual, access the object
MyCustomObjectType complexFromA = ActivityA.complexObject;
}
You could also use a Singleton object which extends Application. You would have the same problem when Android terminates your application. always need to check if the object actually exists. Using the Singleton extending Application approach seems to be the more organized way - but adds more complexity to implementation. just depends what you need to do and whatever works for your implementation.
You should create a separate class that both the activities can use.
public class HelperClass{
public void sharedFunction(){
//implement function here
}
}
I would recommend staying away from static variable in android. It can cause some unexpected behavior.
Use getParent() from new activity and call parent's method
Android Activity call another Activity method