Develop Reference

How to kill a specific Instance of a Activity?

I know we can keep only one instance by
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT)
but I need that my app can create maximum two instances of certain activity not more than that.
I am using a chained search feature like image below
When Instance3 of the activity1 is created i want to destroy:-
Instance1 of activity1
Instance1 of activity2
Tried to used this to kill a specific activity but activity have same Pid for all processes in an app
android.os.Process.killProcess( stack.getLast());
is there a way we can moderate which instances should be kept alive?
any help would be great thanks!

In my opinion this is the wrong architecture. For chained search you should only ever have a single instance of each Activity. You should flip between the different Activity instances by calling startActivity() and setting Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT in the Intent you use. Also add the data you want to display as "extras" in the Intent.
To be able to use the BACK button to back through the chain (no matter how long it is), each Activity should manage a stack that contains the data that it needs to recreate the page whenever the user backs into it. In onCreate() and in onNewIntent() the data (from the "extras") should be pushed onto the stack and displayed. You then override onBackPressed() and go back to the previous Activity by calling startActivity(), and setting Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT in the Intent you use. You also add an "extra" to the Intent that indicates the user wants to "go back". In onBackPressed() you should also discard the top element off the data stack of the Activity that is being left. This will ensure that the stack is correct when the user then backs into this Activity.
In onNewIntent() if the user just backed into the Activity, you just display the data that is already on top of the stack of managed data.
In this way, you only ever have one instance of each Activity, the user can chain all day through the set of activities and the BACK button always works and you don't have to worry about running out of memory.
Trying to accomplish this using taskAffinity or Intent flags or similar will not work. Don't waste your time. It is also bad programming style.
I hope this is clear.

Basically you want to remove entries 1 and 2 from the backstack when you create the 5th one, but leave the 3rd and 4th. Unfortunately, the backstack doesn't work that way, you can only manipulate it from the top. You have the option of clearing all the activities except the last one if you set the flags FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK and FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK, you will have an empty task only with the just started activity.
If I were you, I wouldn't worry about memory consumption by the old activities though. As long as you stop the resource-consuming processes in your activities when they leave the screen and don't hold the references to them so they can be garbage collected, Android can manage the memory itself fine. What you should think about is whether it makes sense for the user to come back to the old activities if he presses back. If yes, then leave them, if no, then don't.
In case you want to kill all your activities on the back button press, there is an Activity.finishAffinity() method. Just override the onBackPressed method to call it.

You can use a little hack with EventBus or BroadcastReceiver or some other Bus. Check my following code for my idea. For this app, I will keep maximum 2 instances of MainActivity
public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
public static int count = 0;
int id;
#Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
count ++;
id = getIntent().getIntExtra("ID", 0);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
findViewById(R.id.button).setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
#Override
public void onClick(View view) {
Intent intent = new Intent(MainActivity.this, MainActivity.class);
intent.putExtra("ID", count);
startActivity(intent);
}
});
}
#Override
protected void onStart() {
super.onStart();
EventBus.getDefault().register(this);
EventBus.getDefault().post(new Event(count));
}
#Subscribe
public void onEvent(Event event) {
if (id < (event.getID() - 2)) {//put your logic code to finish the activity here
Log.i("MainActivity", id + " is killed ");
finish();
}
}
#Override
protected void onStop() {
super.onStop();
EventBus.getDefault().unregister(this);
}
}

you can do this bro,
declare one Activity object like this
public static Activity factivity;
onCreate()
{
factivity = this;
}
now you can use that object to kill that specific activity on another activity like this:
onCreate()
{
FirstActivity.factivity.finish();
}

How to Quit Android App

I have an Android App, and has several activities. I need to provide the button for each activity or specific activity which should allow to Close the App, without going to back to previous activities or run in background.
I tried
finish();
System.exit(0);
Both combination and individually its not working but closing the current activity and navigate to previous activity.
I looked the code from the following question
Need code for exit from app in android

First, having a Quit button is not reccomended in Android as it's not part of the expected UX.
But if you really need it, then you can call your home activity with an intent containing an extra, for instance :
intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP)
intent.putExtra("FORCE_EXIT", true);
Finally in your home activity, when handling the intent (in the onNewIntent() method), if the "ForceExit" extra is set, then finish the activity.
The stack will have been cleared completely by the FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP and your app will then stop.

The most recommended approach that works for most cases is to feature only 1 Activity, using fragments for content displaying and logic.
This way you only need to finish() the main Activity since it will control the app lifecycle by design.
You will have many other benefits, such as dependency control and reusability, aswell as built-in functionality like animations using fragment transactions while having the possibility of keeping a fragment backstack, which you can manage accordingly towards your expected user interaction and without affecting the conveniency of finishing your app by calling finish() on your host Activity.
Another thing you can do, is to flag intents like this: intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP); before launching a new Activity.
This way you can maintain your back trace clean, hence finishing the application whenever the user press the back button or call finish() from any event. However the use of flags is discouraged and considered bad practise.

This may be a hack to solve your problem. but i have just made an app and tested my code and it is working fine.
You will need to create a new activity called QuitActivity or whatever you want to name it and when you want to finish your app or quit your app you will have to start that activity via using this code
Intent i = new Intent(getApplicationContext(), QuitActivity.class);
i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
i.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
startActivity(i);
this.finish();
then this is my code for quit activity that does nothing but closes it self after clearing the backstack so your app will quit.
public class QuitActivity extends Activity {
#Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
this.finish();
}
}
hope this helps you.

First Finish your current Activity while moving to next by this code
startActivity(intent);
Classname.this.finish();
Second thing just override onBackPressed
#Override
public void onBackPressed() {
//do nothing
}

Use:
intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP)
when starting a new Activity, as described in API Documentation.

type only System.exit(0);
or create static boolean needToExit;
set needToExit = true;
in place where you call
finish();
System.exit(0);
in all other activity overwrite onresume
public void onResume(){
super.onResume();
if (MySettingsClass.needToExit){
finish();
System.exit(0);
return;
}
//your other code;
}

I tried some of the answers here using the flags or System.exit(0), but for me it either didn't work or it resulted in weird behavior. Sometimes it would kill the app, but then immediately restart it. I realized that I should just be doing things more of the standard way using request and result codes.
Basically, in your parent activity, start your child activity with:
startActivityForResult(new Intent(this, ChildActivity.class), CHILD_ACTIVITY_REQUEST_CODE);
where CHILD_ACTIVITY_REQUEST_CODE is just a constant (static final) integer. Then in your child activity, when they press the exit button, finish the activity with:
setResultAndFinish(RESULT_CODE_EXIT);
where RESULT_CODE_EXIT is another constant (static final) integer. Then back in your parent activity, handle the result code and finish the parent activity too:
protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
if(requestCode == CHILD_ACTIVITY_REQUEST_CODE) {
if(resultCode != ChildActivity.RESULT_CODE_EXIT) {
finish();
return;
}
}
}

How to disable or override the oncreate method in Android

I have 3 pages in my application. Page A,B,C. When i click next button in A page the page will navigate to B page. In that page there will be some request and response process and Progress indicator will happen. Then when i click next the page will navigate to C page. There also some request and response process and Progress indicator process will happen. Now my problem is when i click back button from page C The page is navigate to B page. But the request response process and progress indicator process is working. Here i don't want do this process when i click back button. Now i have try like this:-
#Override
protected void onStart() {
super.onStart();
Log.v(this.getClass().toString(),"onStart");
}
Here the request and response process is not working when i click back button. But the progress indicator is loading. This progress indicator is continuously rolling. How to disable all the functions. I just want to go back. Do not do any other work. Please help me to solve this issue. Sorry For the poor English..

As you can see, you add a flag Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP. This flag will clear all previous activities.
Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP - If set, and the activity being launched is already running in the current task, then instead of launching a new instance of that activity, all of the other activities on top of it will be closed and this Intent will be delivered to the (now on top) old activity as a new Intent.
And also you finish the current activity, so navigating back to page B call B's onCreate method where you have those requests and process stuff. Avoid adding flag and finish() methods.

You don't want to override the onCreate() method for this usecase, why would you do that? The activity is created, and the process will run. What you want is to override the onBackPressed() method, so that you cannot exit the Activity until the process is complete.
Similarly to these: Android: Proper Way to use onBackPressed() with Toast but here you want to make a boolean that is set to false while the process is not complete, and set to true when it's done. Allow onBackPressed() to call super.onBackPressed() only when the boolean is true.
#Override
public void onBackPressed()
{
if(processesCompleted == true)
{
super.onBackPressed();
}
}

You can't disable the onCreate() method in android but you can however override it like you do with the onStart().
I suggest you take a look at the life cycles of either fragments or activities, depending on which you use.
Fragments:
http://developer.android.com/guide/components/fragments.html
Activities:
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html
It is hard to understand what the problem really is without more code, but basically the code in onCreate will mostly not be called when you press the backbutton since an activity will be paused until the phone needs more resources and then destroys it. If an activity is destroyed the onCreate method will be called and there is nothing you can do to change that.
If my answer dosen't help, please provide more example code.

If all your cards have different activities, the backbutton should work perfectly. However if your activity is brought to the front, nothing will be reloaded, except the onresume. In the onresume you can perform a new loading structure or something you want to achieve.
When you don't have different activities, use the override at onBackPressed(), that will handle the backbutton.
But place some code for a better answer

You can create a new function in which you run the processes and call
it on onCreate and use a Boolean flag to make sure when you go back to
that activity and flag is checked the function is not called. Then
save the value of flag in savedPreference onPause() method and you are
done and onCreate() method load your saved preference.
Something like this
boolean flag = false;
#Override
public void onResume()
{
super.onResume();
// load savedPreferences
}
#Override
public void onPause()
{
super.onPause();
//save savedPreferences
}
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
{
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
if(flag == false)
{
//function call
processes();
}
}
private void processes()
{
flag = true;
// do stuff here
}

Android App close and reopen start at beginning again

I have created a simple app for android, that uses buttons to navigate different activities the app starts at page 1, you click on page 2 or 3 button etc and that starts the required activity, simple.
What im having problems with (more of annoyance than problem) when you click HOME or come out of the app, because android doesn't kill the app straight away it is keeping the page you are on remembered and is opening the app at activity 2 or 3 for example. I want the app when closed to go back to the beginning of the app again and open at 1, i can go back to 1 by clicking back but this is really not what i wanted.
I hope someone can read this and understand, simplest solution possible please

What you need to do is use the Activity lifecycle to your advantage. When a screen is hidden for any reason, its onPause method gets called. When it's displayed again, onResume gets called. However, onResume is called even the first time a new Activity is displayed. Another problem is that onPause is called when transitioning between Activities.
So you ultimately want to "restart" the app when the last Activity's onPause and onResume are called in succession. Try this class, and have all of your Activity's extend this instead of Activity.
public abstract class BaseActivity extends Activity {
private static BaseActivity lastPausedActivity = null;
#Override
protected void onPause() {
super.onPause();
lastPausedActivity = this;
}
#Override
protected void onResume() {
super.onResume();
if(this == lastPausedActivity) {
lastPausedActivity = null;
Intent intent = new Intent(this, FirstActivity.class);
intent.setFlags( Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP );
startActivity( intent );
}
}
}
I haven't tested this code, so it may need a few tweaks, but the logic should be sound.

Start new activity from notification in android

I want to start a Activity A from status bar notification, When the activity A is already in front then i want to finish that and fresh start activity A. How can i do this?

Review the documentation on creating Status Bar Notifications. This definitely covers starting and Activity from a Notification using an Intent and PendingIntent.
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/notifiers/notifications.html
As for if the Activity is already running, finish it and start it freshly... I'm not sure that can be done easily, depending on what you really want. You may be able to do something with the launch mode activity parameter in the manifest:
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/activity-element.html#lmode
And then have your activity respond (with onNewIntent() most likely) and "reset" itself programmatically. Possibly with something like this:
Android restart my activity

You mean re-start Activity A? While the most common approach is just to re-launch a new Intent with your same class I think it uses way too memory. I'd rather create an "init" method which should be called from the onCreate AND when you want to re-launch your activity. Example:
public void onCreate(Bundle si){
// Call super and set your layout...
init();
}
/**
* This method should be called whenever you want to restart your activity. The
* biggest advantage is you already have your layout (setContentView() method)
*/
private void relaunchActivityA(){
// Clean or save anything you need to clean or save
init();
}
private void init(){
// Init your variables, threads, and so on
}
If you wrote 'finish that and fresh start Activity A' instead of 'Activity B', then right after your startActivity() -on activity A- call 'finish'. Example:
// This is inside Activity A
Intent i = new Intent(this, ActivityB.class);
startActivity();
finish(); // This will be called right after 'Activity B' finishes