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Detect if user starts an application, android

Thanks in advance for the help.
I have an app that can be started by either the user physically starting the app (like you would any normal app) or by a repeating service. Depending on what starts the app (the user or the service) I want to preform different initialization actions. How might I be able to detect if an user starts the app without doing anything custom (I imagine that there has to be some kind of built in setting in android for me to determine this)?

If service, that starts your Activity, is yours service, you can put some custom information (using Intent#putExtra for example) in Intent you use to start Activity from Service.
In Activity you can use Activity#getIntent(), that returns the intent that started this activity.
If you started Activity from Service, that Intent will be the one you passed in Service#startActivity, and will have your custom information. Otherwise, that was not your Service, that started your Activity.
That could look somehow like that, for example:
//in Activity
public static final String EXTRA_STARTED_FROM_MY_SERVICE = "com.example.extra_started_from_sevice";
private boolean wasActivityStartedFromService() {
Intent startingIntent = getIntent();
//assuming you will use Intent#putExtra in your service when starting activity
return startingIntent.getBooleanExtra(EXTRA_STARTED_FROM_MY_SERVICE, false);
}
//...
//in Service
//...
Intent startingIntent = new Intent(this, MainActivity.class);
startingIntent.putExtra(MainActivity.EXTRA_STARTED_FROM_MY_SERVICE, true);
startActivity(startingIntent);

Sending Intent to Home and Widget Add

I'm trying to figure out how to send an intent to the home screen to add a Widget to it if I can. Any ideas? Here is some code I've been fooling around with to at least prompt the Add Widget selection.
AppWidgetManager mAppWidgetManager;
AppWidgetHost mAppWidgetHost;
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
selectWidget();
mAppWidgetManager = AppWidgetManager.getInstance(this);
mAppWidgetHost = new AppWidgetHost(this, R.id.APPWIDGET_HOST_ID);
}
void selectWidget() {
int appWidgetId = this.mAppWidgetHost.allocateAppWidgetId();
Intent pickIntent = new Intent(AppWidgetManager.ACTION_APPWIDGET_PICK);
pickIntent.putExtra(AppWidgetManager.EXTRA_APPWIDGET_ID, appWidgetId);
startActivityForResult(pickIntent, R.id.REQUEST_PICK_APPWIDGET);
}
Thank you to anybody who contributes.

You can send the ACTION_APPWIDGET_PICK intent to the system, but your app cannot process it, unless what you're coding is a Home screen replacement, i.e. a launcher.
Take a look at the documentation for App Widget Host, in particular the section about Host Binding. The code you're using in the selectWidget() method is the same used in the original Launcher app (under title Binding app widgets on Android 4.0 and lower). Then comes an implementation for onActivityResult, where the intent is processed. This method is what is missing in your code, but if you include it, you will end up doing all the work the Home screen app does (see addAppWidget(Intent data) next in that page).
If you continue reading the App Widget Host doc, you will see that the binding process changed on Android 4.1 and there is also a new intent for this task that requires a permission in the manifest. And to complicate things more, keep in mind #CommonsWare's comment: there are a lot of Home screen implementations, that probably do the binding process differently :(
To summarize: there's no way to get the list of app widgets and process what the user selected, neither is a way to ask the launcher app to do this for us, unfortunately. Perhaps in a future Android version, as this comment in the latest Launcher source code reveals:
/**
We will likely flesh this out later, to handle allow external apps to place widgets, but for now,
we just want to expose the action around for checking elsewhere. */

Activity opened twice

I have an application that uses Urban Airship for push notification. When a notification arrives and the user clicks on it, activity A in my application should open and do something.
I've installed the BroadcastReceiver as is shown in the docs, and it's almost working.
When my app is in the foreground I don't let the user see the notification at all, and just handle it automatically.
When my app is not running at all, the activity opens up just fine.
When my app is in the background (which always happens when A is the top activity), a second instance of Activity A is created.
This is, of course, a problem. I don't want two A activities, I just want one of them. Here's the relevant BroadcastReceiver code:
#Override
public void onReceive(Context ctx, Intent intent)
{
Log.i(tag, "Push notification received: " + intent.toString());
String action = intent.getAction();
int notificationId = intent.getIntExtra(PushManager.EXTRA_NOTIFICATION_ID, -1);
if(action.equals(PushManager.ACTION_NOTIFICATION_OPENED))
{
Intent intentActivity = new Intent(ctx, ActivityA.class);
intentActivity.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
UAirship.shared().getApplicationContext().startActivity((intentActivity);
}
}
UPDATE:
I tried to bypass this bug by calling System.exit(0) when the user presses Back on Activity A. The process ended, but then it was restarted immediately! My BroadcastReceiver is not called again in the second instance. What's happening?
UPDATE 2:
#codeMagic asked for more information about the app and activity A.
This app lets its user review certain items and comment on them. Activity A is started when the app is launched. If the user's session isn't valid any more, a Login activity is started. Once the user logs in, activity A becomes active again. A only has a "No items to review" message and a "Try now" button.
When the user logs in, the server starts sending push notifications whenever a new item is available for review. When the app gets the notification, activity A accesses the server and gets the next item to review. The item is shown in activity B. Once the review is submitted to the server, activity B finishes and activity A is again the top activity.
The server knows when a user is reviewing an item (because activity A fetched it), and doesn't send push notifications until the review is submitted - meaning a notification can't come if the user isn't logged in or if the user is viewing activity B.
While I agree there is a subtle race condition here, it is not causing the problem I'm seeing - in testing I am 100% positive there's no race condition - the push notification is only sent after Activity A becomes active again.

The solution was to add a launchMode='singleTask' to the activity in AndroidManifest.xml . As a result, instead of a new activity, onNewIntent of the same activity instance is called.

You can use one of several Intent Flags. FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT being one of them. This will bring the Activity to the front of the stack if it is already in the stack and if not then it will create a new instance. I believe you will still need FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK if you aren't calling it from an Activity
Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP should also work. But this will clear any other Activities on the stack. It just depends on what other functionality you need. Look through the Intent Flags and see which of these will work best for you

There are multiple scenarios when this could happen. One of them can be handled this way. Please see my answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/44117025/2959575

Ok, two notes on this :
You can register a broadcast receiver via the manifest so it is independent of any parts of your app. and use a Singleton pattern (keep a static reference to your activity somewhere in your app) that way you can check if their is an activity viewing or not and process accordingly.
// your activity A
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle bundle) {
super.onCreate(bundle);
myActivityReference = this;
}
public void onPause() {
super.onPause();
if (isFinishing()) {
myActivityReference = null;
}
}
or you can keep everything as it is and use activity lunching modes flags in your manifest such as singleTop, singleInstance ... etc. take a look here android activity lunch modes

android clipboard broadcast receiver

I want to make a simple service, (which will run in the background) when any user copies anything from the browser or sms etc., there will be a toast showing that text
I have this code which gives toast when there is a phone call
public class MyPhoneReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
#Override
public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
Bundle extras = intent.getExtras();
if (extras != null) {
// this code is for to accept the telephone call
String state = extras.getString(TelephonyManager.EXTRA_STATE);
if (state.equals(TelephonyManager.EXTRA_STATE_RINGING)) {
String phoneNumber = extras.getString(TelephonyManager.EXTRA_INCOMING_NUMBER);
Toast.makeText(context, phoneNumber, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}
}
}
}
and this code in manifest.xml
<action android:name="android.intent.action.PHONE_STATE"></action>
now this code tell to send any phone state to the myreciever class now I want to get text from clipboard manager. is there any intent.action state which can call myreciever class when someone copies text.
Any kind of help or code will be appreciated.

Since there is now Action intent for clipboard, what you will need to do is create a broadcast receiver to start when your app is started on when the device first boots up. And then start a service to monitor the state of the clipboard.
This is a PERFECT project on google code that will show you EXACTLY what to do.
My Clip tutorial

I'm agree with "coder_For_Life22":"Since there is now Action intent for clipboard, ...".
I found two ways for monitoring "clipboard":
1-A way like what says "coder_For_Life22".
2-Using "ClipboardManager.OnPrimaryClipChangedListener()" method.
But both of them have issues :
In first way if user copy a word for example "Text" and then (even after sometimes and in another App) again copy the same word,you can not detect it.
Second way, is a solution for using android 3.0 api 11 and not lower.

Question regarding account creation and sync on Android

I've been reading the sample code from the dev docs on Android's site, specifically this:
http://developer.android.com/resources/samples/SampleSyncAdapter/src/com/example/android/samplesync/authenticator/AuthenticatorActivity.html
Which is the sole activity of the sample app. It refers to an intent in the onCreate method. I don't understand where this intent is coming from, or what it should contain if this is the only activity the app utilizes.
Log.i(TAG, "loading data from Intent");
final Intent intent = getIntent();
mUsername = intent.getStringExtra(PARAM_USERNAME);
mAuthtokenType = intent.getStringExtra(PARAM_AUTHTOKEN_TYPE);
mRequestNewAccount = mUsername == null;
mConfirmCredentials = intent.getBooleanExtra(PARAM_CONFIRM_CREDENTIALS, false);
That's the block of code working with the intent. Why would you have an intent for the only activity in the app? Is this app called in an unusual way? The Manifest does not include an intent filter for the activity... I guess I'm just a bit lost on this whole thing! If someone could set me straight that'd be great, thanks.

Why would you have an intent for the only activity in the app?
getIntent() gets you the intent that started this activity.
Is this app called in an unusual way?
I guess this activity is called programmatically from another app or activity, since it has been passed some extra data: getStringExtra() is used to extract some data from the intent that started it. putExtra.. and getExtra.. is a way to pass data between activities when they are started.

In that specific example, the intent is sent from the addAccount method in Authenticator.java. That method is called by the OS when you click the Add Account button in the Accounts & sync settings screen and choose your account type.