I was wondering if is it possible attach a widget to the main Android background/wallpaper/desktop?
I want develop something like a clock, actually It's a very simple widget that have three buttons. This is quite different from another desktop-widgets-like, all the widgets that I've seen are like a customization of the Android wallpaper, or a customization of the Android unlocker, but this is rather different.
If it is possible, do you know some sample code source?
Not sure what "background/wallpaper/desktop" really means, as "background" is too wide term, "wallpaper" may be either static bitmap or live wallpaper, "desktop" means nothing on Android (did you mean Launcher by any odd chance?). If you meant live wallpaper, then you cannot have full functionality in Live Wallpaper you have on Launcher, but if "three buttons" means you want to allow user to tap certain area and react on this, then it should be not a big problem - you can use onTouchEvent() to receive taps from user and act accordingly. If you meant Launcher then well, "yes". For any other options "no" or "most likely no"
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I'd like to create an Android app that can modify the whole display, even when the app is not being used directly. This is one example of an app that seems to do this.
Ideally, I'd not only want to be able to tint the screen, but to perform arbitrary operations on the pixels being shown on the display, ranging between making the entire screen a solid color, inverting the colors (so that e.g. black becomes white), and blurring the screen. (I could imagine this level of access in the wrong hands could make somebody's phone unusable, so maybe not all of these are possible.)
Any pointers on how to do this?
You want to let your app draw over other apps. There is a special set of requirements for such applications.
Take a look here and here.
There is also a simple tutorial.
And an opensource app, that looks pretty similar to one you've linked above.
I was wondering if there was a way I can have part of my screen in android constantly display something, even something as simple as a piece of text or an image. I am fairly familiar with Android Development, so if there is a way to make an app that does that, it'd be great.
To be precise, I want the top third of my screen to stay constant, and the bottom two-thirds to work normally such that I can do anything I can normally do
Edit: I want the top third to display the constant text/image even if I exit the app. A widget is a good idea. I'll look more into that.
In Android , Is it possible to display one application(rendering Video) as a floating screen in one half of the screen. and at the same time interacting with another application(e.g chat application or any other application. ).The floating screen appliction will be my application so that it will allow the user to do multitasking.
The idea is to keep the surfaceview of the application, which is rendering the video, on top, and at the same time interact with other applications.e.g gallery or any other application..
If by "two active applications" then you mean real applications (i.e. with activities, back stack, &c) active at the same time, then no (except in some specialized devices, with custom APIs).
However, there is a trick you can use to achieve a similar effect. Applications with the android.permission.SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW (displayed as "draw over other apps" in Play Store) can create windows from a service and show them. So you could probably get the effect you want with this method.
There is an open source library called StandOut which provides this behavior in an easy to use manner. You might want to take a look at it.
In short, the answer is no. There is no way currently for multiple apps to be visible on the screen at the same time.
You could theoretically reuse code over multiple different applications, so you could create a video window that could play video, while simultaneously showing a text editor fragment that allows notes to be taken, and you can send data between different applications using an Intent, but unlike modern desktop computers, only one application can currently have the focus of the screen at a time in Android.
As Android live wallpapers are becoming more prevalent, and developers are doing more with them, a question coming up more and more is how to hide the home screen icons temporarily while the user interacts with the wallpaper.
For this to work, the icons would have to be removed temporarily – not just made invisible, since a tap on an invisible icon would still run the app.
Also, it would be ideal to have a universal solution that works across customs launchers, not just the Android stock launcher.
This question was already asked on StackOverflow, and the answer was that you cannot do this. But this is clearly not correct, as there are at least two programs on Android Market that do exactly this: Show Off (Your Live Wallpaper) and The Cleaner (Show Wallpaper)
Is there a way to hide Android home screen icons, and then later put them back in place?
You can launch an activty which backgroung will be your live walpaper, and finish the activty upon touch... Just a thought...
Edit:
1st comment answer:
Preventing the delay:
You should be more "gentle" in the onCreate() method...
Try creating the minimum as possible in the onCreate(), like, just displaying the basic background...
in the end of the onCreate function, set an alarm (i.e. by AlarmManager) to call some BroadcastReceiver/Activity after half a second or so (with AlarmManager) to set the rest of the live wallpaper graphics... that way you don't have to worry about the delay.
This would have to be a completely new launcher. This is not possible without this I don't think. Sorry. However; to be absolutely sure though you'd have to look at the Launcher2 package in the android source and look through files like Homescreen.java. I'll look into it later on 2.3.3 for you and see what I find.
Try using the zoom gesture as you would to zoom in on a web page (reverse pinch). And you guessed it, the opposite makes everything come back.
I'm writing my first Android game, and though the game itself is working well, I'm not too sure about some of the Android integration aspects of it. Specifically:
Should I provide an in-game volume control?
Should I hide the status bar?
Is the Menu button generally used to pause the game, or should I provide an on-screen control for this?
etc.
Basically I just want my game to do everything the "standard" way. I don't want to frustrate users. Is there some resource (official or not) that lists recommendations for such things? Alternatively, can anyone give me a few important guidelines?
There are no official guidelines how to do this, but some 'Android common sense' would be advisable.
As usual, there is more than one way to do anything, but most of the apps seem to follow the following principles:
full screen games (especially ones in landscape mode) seem to hide the status bar most of the time
you should override the menu button, so it does not get pressed accidentally, but provide a quick way to leave the game
back button usually pauses the app
you do not need in-game volume control since all of existing android devices include a volume rocker, but make turning the volume off available as soon as the game (splash screen) starts, preferably give the person a few moments to turn it off before the music start (a 'would you like to turn the music down?' dialog would be nice)
an (as usually on android) don't count on anything and specify special game requirements (trackpad support, min screen size, ...) in the manifest file
hopefully you can find some more resources online