Develop Reference

What's "AutomaticZenRule" ? What is it used for?

Background
I just noticed some functions of NotificationManager that handle a class that's called AutomaticZenRule :
https://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/NotificationManager.html#addAutomaticZenRule(android.app.AutomaticZenRule)
and others...
The problem
Looking at the docs of AutomaticZenRule, it still doesn't tell much about what it is, and what can it be used for:
Rule instance information for zen mode.
What I tried
Searching the Internet, I can see just in a Commonsware blog post, that they wonder what it is:
It is unclear what AutomaticZenRule is ...
There is practically nothing more that I've found about it. Not "zen mode" and not "AutomaticZenRule".
The questions
What is "zen mode" ?
What is "AutomaticZenRule" , and what can I do with it? How is it related to notifications?
Is there anything special on Android N, that this API was added on this version?
Is there a sample for using it?

Zen Mode is just another name for Do Not Disturb (DND) mode. Android can activate DND mode based on rules. These rules can be provided either by the system, or by a third-party app.
In the following screenshot you can see two system-provided rules, together with a "Driving" rule provided by the third-party app "Pixel Ambient Services":
AutomaticZenRule is there to integrate your own rules into the Android system. To integrate your own rules, you have to follow these rough steps:
Make sure that you have sufficient permissions to access the DND policy (android.permission.ACCESS_NOTIFICATION_POLICY). See NotificationManager.isNotificationPolicyAccessGranted() for details.
Add an activity for your rule:
<activity android:name="MyRuleConfigurationActivity">
<meta-data android:name="android.service.zen.automatic.ruleType" android:value="My Rule" />
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.app.action.AUTOMATIC_ZEN_RULE"/>
</intent-filter>
</activity>
Android will show your activity whenever the user wants to create or edit a rule of the specified rule type. In the latter case, Android will supply the ID of the existing rule in NotificationManager#EXTRA_AUTOMATIC_RULE_ID. To propagate changes in your activity back to android, you need to construct an AutomaticZenRuleinstance and call NotificationManager.addAutomaticZenRule / updateAutomaticZenRule.
After that, you can tell Android that the conditions for your rule are currently satisfied / not satisfied by calling NotificationManager.setAutomaticZenRuleState.

From digging in into the other documents available, i was able to understand ZenMode to some extent(although it can be my own version and not the correct one).
What my understanding is as follows -
Zen Mode is the Do not Disturb mode which now in latest updates can be enabled automatically which depends on factors such as late time of the day, etc. AutomaticZenrule can be used by applications who want their notifications to not be masked or suppressed when in do not disturb mode.
For this your application should make request to policy access by sending the user to the activity that matches the system intent action ACTION_NOTIFICATION_POLICY_ACCESS_SETTINGS.
If user has granted access to notification policy for your app, then you will be able to set a priority notification even in do not disturb mode. AutomaticZenrule thus plays a vital role to state the system that the application's notifications not be suppressed.
Although, i dont have a running sample code for it, i guess it should be on similar lines like the enabling device admin code or requesting a permission use case.
Thanks to you i got to read something new :)

Keyguard, isDeviceLocked or isDeviceSecured?

Im trying to develop an app which has a few security options, and for one of those options I need to able to know if the device is locked with any kind password(numbers,pattern,etc) so I started reading the android documentation and found two KeyguardManager methods, isDeivceLocked() and isDeviceSecured() however I don't really see much of a difference in the description, so what really is the difference between the two? thanks in advance

The official API states the difference, though it might be a bit confusing. The key difference is whether you want to know the general configuration of the device, or its current state.
So isDeviceLocked() returns true if the device is currently locked behind some kind of password or identification mechanism, which is required in order to unlock and use the device. It returns false in case that the device is currently open and in use, or that it just doesn't require any password/identification in order to open it. (reference and more details may be found here)
On the other hand, isDeviceSecure() returns true if the device has been configured to use any kind of password or identification mechanism - even if it's not currently required in order to use the device.
In case you wonder what scenario might cause isDeviceSecure to return true, while isDeviceLocked returns false: it might happen whenever the device in in use (after the lock password has already been entered). Another scenario might be when the device has Smart Unlock (or trusted devices) configured, so that currently it wouldn't ask for a password or any other kind of identification in order to open/unlock itself.

Check if Sync is Enabled within Android App

Is there a way to check, programmatically within my Android app, whether a particular setting under Settings > Accounts and Sync > Data & Synchronization is enabled or not?
Is there a way to check if the general sync settings are enabled?
Thanks!
If it helps to know "why," I'm currently rolling my own sync functionality (not using SyncAdapter). However, if possible I'd like to have my sync service listed under Data & Synchronization. Right now I'm planning to hack a dummy sync service that does nothing and have my app's sync service query whether or not the dummy sync service is enabled. That will tell me whether to sync or not.

To know if a sync is enabled (and not active as rajpara's answer do), use this:
AccountManager am = AccountManager.get(YourActivity.this);
Account account = am.getAccountsByType(YOUR_ACCOUNT_TYPE)[0];
boolean isYourAccountSyncEnabled = ContentResolver.getSyncAutomatically(account, DataProvider.AUTHORITY);
boolean isMasterSyncEnabled = ContentResolver.getMasterSyncAutomatically();
The "master" sync status is the global sync switch the user can use to disable all sync on his phone. If the master sync is off, your account won't sync, even if your account sync status tells that it's enabled.
As #HiB mentionned, the android.permission.READ_SYNC_SETTINGS permission is needed to access the sync status. android.permission.WRITE_SYNC_SETTINGS is needed to enable/disable it.
You also need android.permission.GET_ACCOUNTS to get the accounts, as MeetM mentionned.

You can check whether sync is enable or not with the help of below code and this Document
AccountManager am = AccountManager.get(YourActivity.this);
Account account = am.getAccountsByType(Const.ACCOUNT_TYPE)[0];
if(ContentResolver.isSyncActive(account, DataProvider.AUTHORITY){
// sync is enable
}
You can also set enable/disable programmatically with the help of this ContentResolver.setSyncAutomatically and ContentResolver.setMasterSyncAutomatically
Update :
isSyncActive returns true if there is currently a sync operation for the given account or authority in the pending list, or actively being processed.

boolean isEnabled = ContentResolver.getSyncAutomatically(account, MyProvider);
if(isEnabled)
{
...do something
}
Works for me

android Outbound caller id - on/off

I wan to hide/show my caller id from my activity programmatically. I tried to find it in the android documentation but without the luck. Maybe you have any ideas?

I posted a question asking this on the Android Google group and got absolutely no answers at all. I've also seen a couple of other question on SO which also had no answers (or none that work).
I came to the conclusion that it simply isn't possible. My reasoning is this...
If I go to Settings -> Call -> Additional settings, I see an AlertDialog which has a HeaderTitle of 'Call settings' and I see a circular progress indicator and a message saying 'Reading settings...'.
It occurs to me that my phone is, at that point, accessing my phone/network provider. The resulting 'chooser' dialog gives me options for 'Network default', 'Hide number' and 'Show number' and when I make a selection (or even if I just 'Cancel' the dialog), I get another AlertDialog with circular progress indicator with the message 'Updating settings...'.
In short, it seems the Caller ID setting is not entirely 'local' to the phone settings and relies on interaction with the provider and, for whatever reason, as a result of this the Android APIs don't allow this to be manipulated programatically.
I'm not sure if this is something on the 'To Do' list for future versions of Android or if there are legal/security implications in allowing it to be done or some other reason. Whatever the case may be, I haven't found anybody so far who is able to explain why there isn't a method for TelephonyManager (for example) to simply switch this.
EDIT: No luck on getting the Additional Settings AlertDialog with the standard APIs either.
The reason I say that is that it is possible to pull up various parts of the device's 'Settings', e.g., in one of my apps I use android.provider.Settings.ACTION_WIRELESS_SETTINGS in the constructor of an Intent passed to startActivity(). This brings up the Settings page for enabling/disabling wi-fi, mobile internet and bluetooth.
android.provider.Settings has other similar ACTIONs for other Settings pages but there isn't even one for 'Call' never mind Call -> Additional Settings and nothing for the AlertDialog to allow you to choose to Hide/Show the outgoing Caller ID.
If this can be done then it would have to be an undocumented API unless I completely missed it (I spent a long time looking). I suspect examining the Android source-code may be the only way to find an answer and I haven't attempted that yet.

I have managed to get Additional call settings dialog. Explanation below:
Although it looks like it is part of the Settings, in fact it is part of the Native PhoneApp. If you take a look at the AndroidManifest.xml of the PhoneApp you will see that Activity GsmUmtsAdditionalCallOptions has defined IntentFilter for the android.intent.action.MAIN.
So, the code that I checked to work correctly on several phones:
Intent additionalCallSettingsIntent = new Intent("android.intent.action.MAIN");
ComponentName distantActivity = new ComponentName("com.android.phone", "com.android.phone.GsmUmtsAdditionalCallOptions");
additionalCallSettingsIntent.setComponent(distantActivity);
startActivity(additionalCallSettingsIntent);

If the #31# trick works for your needs for a single call then you could add a broadcast receiver that listens for the outgoing call notification and modifies the number to include #31# at the start before it gets dialled. Android allows the number to be changed on the way through like that.
Only works if your default is to enable caller ID and your network support #31# and you want to toggle it off using a widget, say.

The Caller ID is network specific not something that the phone controls. In fact in certain mobile network configurations the phone doesn't even 'know' its own phone number.
Some networks support sending an activate/deactivate caller ID network command. In GSM this is normally #31#. It can be permanent or on a per call basis.
Permanent requests the network to hide the caller ID for all calls.
Per call requests the network to hide the caller ID only for that call. The latter is achieved by prefixing the number being called by #31#, so for example calling #31#85432786426 would call 85432786426 hiding the caller.
Some networks support both, some only support one of them, and some do not enable it. Try your luck and try prefixing the dialed number with #31# and see if it works.
http://www.gsm-security.net/faq/gsm-caller-id-clip-clir.shtml

If you want a shortcut to the additional call settings, you can use App Cut and select GSM settings. It will place a shortcut on your home screen.

Android: Enable/Disable Auto Sync and Background Data

I want to develop an application that disables the Background Data (new feature in Android 1.5) and Auto Sync and then enables GPRS/EDGE connection and vice versa.
I figured out how to enable/disable GPRS/EDGE by changing the APN settings. (weird solution. However; Android developers couldn't think a user may want to disable GPRS/EDGE) But, I couldn't find a way to enable/disable Auto Sync and Background data.
I investigated the Android code and as I understood, the Sync operation is an intent. So, I wanted to reach with putExtra to the intent and trigger the enabling/disabling. But; I couldn't find the correct keyword. Or maybe I was totally wrong.
What is the right way to solve this?

In my HTC dreams, there is a checkbox to disable the auto sync. I can look for the menu arborescence if you wish so you can find what the callback function is in the Android source code. But I am pretty sure auto sync cannot be completely disabled. Unchecking auto sync will prevent sync from being performed on a timed basis, but it will occur everytime you run an app with sync capabilities if any network data connection is available.
Good luck anyway.
EDIT :
There are two ways to get the info you desire.
First, I think you can use the code in android-sources/packages/apps/Settings/src/com/android/settings/Utils.java to create an activity that will enlist all the keys of the intent then find the one you want.
The other way is to write a nice mail to the guy who made the Toggle Setting app (http://smartphoneandroid.com/2008/12/28/toggle-setting-perfect-app-for-android-phone.html) since he obviously found a solution to your problem. His email address is written in the app sheet on the android market. I won't write it here, but if you do not have access to real android phone, I can mail it to you on your mail address.

Background data is a secure setting, so cannot be changed by user applications. But bear in mind, it's just a setting - it's not enforced. Apps are meant to read it and respect it but I bet some don't.

To Disable the AutoSynch
ContentResolver.setMasterSyncAutomatically(false);
To Enable the AutoSynch
ContentResolver.setMasterSyncAutomatically(true);
Permission you require is
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_SYNC_SETTINGS" />

setMasterSyncAutomatically() on ContentResolver should do it. Check: general-sync-settings-auto-sync-checkbox-programtically