Develop Reference

Widget preview image

My app preview image looks like this:
How can I make it look like the WhatsApp Chat preview, small with shadow. Also other apps in my phone use the same type of preview.
My widget xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<appwidget-provider
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:initialLayout="#layout/appwidget"
android:minHeight="40dp"
android:minWidth="320dp"
android:previewImage="#mipmap/ic_launcher"
android:updatePeriodMillis="300000" >
</appwidget-provider>
Manifest:
<receiver
android:name=".activities.MyWidgetProvider"
android:label="Example Widget">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.appwidget.action.APPWIDGET_UPDATE" />
</intent-filter>
<meta-data
android:name="android.appwidget.provider"
android:resource="#xml/widget_info" />
</receiver>
UPDATE:
Actually I have noticed this all shortcuts and not widgets, they all have this look.

You have set your launcher icon as widget preview image.
<appwidget-provider xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
...
android:previewImage="#drawable/widget_preview">
</appwidget-provider>
I suggest you to make a screenshot of your widget with the emulator, which has an application (Widget Preview) for creating a preview with just the right size.
Then, you can also edit the picture if you are not satisfied.
Anyway, be sure to put it on drawable-nodpi.
Official guide to follow: https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/appwidgets/index.html#preview
For other dev experience, see this link: Android Widget: previewImage size

It seems that you have placed ic_launcher as widget previewImage
You have to make a custom image, which have large image as Alpha in background, and on it place your icon in small size on top-right corner.
I have done same thing by generating custom image for previewImage with help of photoshop and its working.
Thank you.

Android application is installing two launcher icons

This is not a duplicate of Android Application creating two launcher icons (I don't have multiple LAUNCHER definitions in my manifest), nor Android Application Creating Two Launcher Icons instead of One (a restart of the device does not remove the second launcher icon).
My android application is creating two launcher icons, but one of them seems to be coming from the application itself, rather than any activity. I've cropped my AndroidManifest.xml to the smallest it can be (plus clean and rebuild and reinstall), and I am still getting two icons (on both my HTC One M8 physical phone and my Nexus 5 emulator):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="com.example.app">
<application
android:allowBackup="true"
android:icon="#mipmap/ic_launcher"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:supportsRtl="true"
android:theme="#style/AppTheme">
<activity
android:name=".SplashActivity"
android:screenOrientation="portrait">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
</application>
</manifest>
There is nothing else in my manifest.
...does the application itself as I've defined it create an icon somehow? Or is there some other way that I'm ending up with multiple launcher icons?
If I move the android:label and android:icon features into the .SplashActivity definition, one of the launcher icons created is replaced with the default little green robot icon.

Activities and other bits of manifest-y goodness come from a variety of sources:
the manifest in your main sourceset
the manifest in any build type or product flavor sourceset
the manifest in any library module or AAR
Gradle (e.g., minSdkVersion)
Android Studio 2.2 gave us a convenient tool to examine the real manifest that goes into our APKs, merged from all those sources. If you open the manifest in Android Studio, click over on the "Manifest Merger" sub-tab (towards the bottom of the IDE). That will show what is in the merged manifest and who is to blame for it where it came from.
If you see other activities in there besides the one in your manifest, that is the source of your launcher icon. Then, you'll need to decide:
is that activity something you really want?
if not, is the source of that activity something that you really want? (if not, nuke it)
if you want the source but not the activity, you can rig up another activity element in your manifest, with a tools:replace attribute, to override the one from the library and suppress the <intent-filter>

My problem was, that I've added the following intent-filter to multiple Activities. Configured it for one Activity fixed the issue for me.
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>

How to make lock screen widget wallpaper android

Actually I am working on music player widgets, I made home widget for music player and it is working fine,but when I play any song I need to show that song image on android lock scren, I tried lockscreen widget but I didn't get it please help me
Home widget:
<receiver android:name=".widgets.HomeWidgetProvider">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.appwidget.action.APPWIDGET_UPDATE"/>
</intent-filter>
<meta-data
android:name="android.appwidget.provider"
android:resource="#xml/app_widget_provider"/>
</receiver>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<appwidget-provider xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:initialLayout="#layout/home_widget_layout"
android:minHeight="10dp"
android:minWidth="250dp"
android:updatePeriodMillis="1000000"
>
</appwidget-provider>

If you want to enable your widgets in lockscreen too you have to set widgetcategory to keygaurd in your manifest as:
<android:widgetCategory="keyguard|home_screen">
You can find detailed documentation in: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/appwidgets/index.html#lockscreen

Actually Google did away with lock screen widgets in Android 5.0 (Lollipop). If you simply want to display the album art on the lock screen, then let your app implement RemoteControlClient (or MediaSession for API 21 and up)
If you want more functionality, the you can create you own interactive lock screen experience for your users with the Adenda SDK (I'm affiliated with Adenda for full disclosure)

Widget icon not updating

I've defined an upload_widget.png file for my app widget, and declared it as below in my AndroidManifest.xml. It worked fine when I first created it, but I've now made a change to the .png image files (in each of /drawable folders), synchronised the files in Android Studio, but the widget icon is not reflecting the new .png files when I re-test the app on my Galaxy S4.
When I long-press on the screen (I'm using Nova Launcher) and select "add widget" I see the correct icon in the "Choose Widget" list, but when I select it I get a different icon on the launcher - i.e. the old icon. When I run the app in a Nexus 5 emulator I get the same problem.
Any ideas??
<receiver android:name=".UploadWidget" android:icon="#drawable/upload_widget" >
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.appwidget.action.APPWIDGET_UPDATE" />
</intent-filter>
<meta-data
android:name="android.appwidget.provider"
android:resource="#xml/upload_widget_info" />
</receiver>
UPDATE
Here is upload_widget_info:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<appwidget-provider xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:minWidth="40dp" android:minHeight="40dp" android:updatePeriodMillis="86400000"
android:previewImage="#drawable/example_appwidget_preview"
android:initialLayout="#layout/upload_widget" android:resizeMode="horizontal|vertical"
android:widgetCategory="home_screen|keyguard"
android:initialKeyguardLayout="#layout/upload_widget"></appwidget-provider>

Your code is correct. This is a common problem on devices running Lollipop. To fix it, navigate through these steps : Settings -> Apps -> Google App -> Manage Space -> Clear Launcher Data. Your shortcuts on the homepage will disappear but the widget icon will be correct.
Source: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=81076&thanks=81076&ts=1417102714

Android TabHost appearance not as expected

i just followed the tutorial on tabs creation from the android dev documentation
and my tabs didn't turn out the way they probably should. Here is a screen on how it looks for me:
alt text http://bombhot.se/files/923947/messedtabs.png
and here is how it should look like:
(source: android.com)
I found som threads that talks about putting localisation on the tabhost and make every activity follow the same configuration but it hasn't worked for me so far. Wondering if
there's something i'm missing, here is my manifest file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="com.koollateral.myWallet"
android:versionCode="1"
android:versionName="1.0">
<application android:icon="#drawable/icon"
android:label="#string/app_name">
<activity android:name=".mywallet"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:theme="#android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
<activity android:name=".homeActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:theme="#android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar">
</activity>
<activity android:name=".calendarActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:theme="#android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar">
</activity>
</application>
</manifest>

I've done this API example before, and I think all that has happened is you have swapped your images compared to the example. Note how the tab uses the negative space of the image as the contrasting colour, while you matched the negative space to the background colour. So if you go into your drawable folder and change the xml file you created for the tabs by swapping the images, it should look a little closer to the example.
Other than that, what do you think isn't right? It appears that you have done the exercise correctly.
Edit: also as a tip, you can put android:theme="#android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar"in the <application> instead of having to put it into every Activity. Then none of your activities will have the title bar.

There seem to be two problems. You have listed the images reversed. Meaning you have the selected and unselected images backwards. Also it looks like they are not the right size. You need to consider the dpi of the device you are targeting.

Hi guys since Android 2.1 the tabs are more square look, my solution was adding a selector containing images with rounded corners.
tabs.getTabWidget().getChildAt(0).setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.mytab_roundedcorner);