Develop Reference

Old layout shown over with new activity

I have an APK that runs completely fine across several android levels varying from android 5 through 9. We started testing a new android 9 phone (Hot Pepper HPP-L55B aka Serrano), and I'm seeing an interesting issue that I'm hoping someone has come across.
All of my Activities extend a base activity that does some standard logging (such as logging onCreate, onResume, etc).
On app launch:
Activity 1 - MainLaunch
onCreate starts the activity Splash then calls finish
Activity 2 - Splash
onCreate sets the content view and finds the WebView on the screen.
onResume sets a gif in the webview so it's rendered on the splash screen. It also starts a thread that sleeps for a few seconds that then kicks off Activity 3. The gif animates as expected.
Activity 3 - Launchpad
onCreate sets the content view and finds references to other items on the screen (buttons and textviews).
onResume checks a few internal things, and may or may not hide things on the UI based on configuration. Nothing to exciting.
There are times this process will go through without a hitch, and other times where the UI that was being displayed in Activity 2 (splash) stays up while my logs are showing that the code thinks it's showing UI 3. The gif in this case is no longer animating.
As you click around on the splash screen the buttons that are referenced and would be showing on Activity 3 are being pressed. So basically like the splash screen is covering the 3rd activities screen and allowing button push pass through. If i turn the screen off/on again the splash screen still shows up. Throwing breakpoints in activity 3 get hit as the hidden buttons get clicked.
Anyone ever see this before or have suggestions how to fix it? This phone model seems to be the only one with the issue. So it definitely seems like a phone model problem and not anything i can control. Any suggestions?

This problem boiled down to the processor (MediaTek) being used in combination with the theme being used for the application. At least that was the only thing that was found different across the supported phones we tested.
The theme for the activities were changed:
from #android:style/Theme.Translucent.NoTitleBar
to #android:style/Theme.Light.NoTitleBar

Setting a specific image/view to be displayed in the recent apps list

I would like my app to show a "splash" screen in the recent apps list, but how can I do this?
I have tried to set that splash view as the first thin in onPause in my activity (and it is set, I can see it just before the app goes to the background), but still the screenshot Android takes of my app is what just before onPause is called. I have also looked into this method: onCreateThumbnail, but it is never called (it seems to be disabled).
What about the ActivityManager, can I somehow remove my app from the ActivityManager task list and add it again with addAppTask and give it a bitmap this way?
Thank you
Søren

Android ICS Launcher 4.0.x cannot keep screen orientation

I've got a strange case for Android ICS Launcher 4.0.x.
Pre-condition:
A ICS device with root permission
Download Android ICS Launcher 4.0.3/4 source code (to modify and run)
Procedure:
Go to market (Play Store), download "Go Task Manager"
Open Widgets tab on Launcher, find "Mem Optimize", drag to Home screen (workspace)
Download and install "Fruit Ninja"
Create "Fruit Ninja" shortcut next to "Mem Optimize" widget on Home screen.
Execute "Fruit Ninja" and keep your phone in LANDSCAPE (hold it in your hand in this position, don't change this)
On menu screen of "Fruit Ninja", slice "Exit" , select "Yes"
Now back on Launcher Home screen, touch on "Mem Optimize" widget
Current Result:
After step 7, the screen is rotated to LANDSCAPE for a while and return to PORTRAIT.
Expectation:
After step 7, the screen should be kept in PORTRAIT.
My Tries (modify Launcher ICS source code):
Add to "Manifest.xml": android:screenOrientation="portrait" => still can't fix the problem.
Handle configuration change, android:configChanges="orientation|screenSize" => still can't fix the problem.
Use: setRequestedScreenOrientation(PORTRAIT) => still can't fix the problem.
What I've tried worked on Android 2.x; however, from 4.0.3+ , somehow it's not working as expected. Does anyone have any idea about this?

The problem is not in the Launcher. The problem is that a single configuration ( and that includes the orientation) is shared among all activities on the phone.
So if you have an activity that set the orientation to Landspace,e.g. Camera ( this is classical example where I work), this will "make" all the other activities to be on landscape too, because as I said that information is unique in system and shared among all.
This happens since the beginning of Android albeit sometimes you will not notice that because the changes are pretty fast.
To check what I am saying do the follow. Write an activity with a dialog theme such as #android:style/Theme.Holo.Dialog, so it won't cover the entire screen and you'll still be able to see the activity that was bellow. That activity must have a fixed orientation. Let's say that you set it to landscape. Then use am start on Android shell to be able to start the activity you have just created on top of any other activity. You'll see that no matter the orientation that previous activity had, as soon as you launch you test activity, the previous activity will assume the same orientation than your test activity. When you hit back, the previous activity will restore the orientation. But sometimes it might take a while, so you see things like your current result.

The stock ICS launcher has a few places where it will set the orientation to unspecified. Just search Launcher.java for setRequestedOrientation, but specifically it's either on "eng" builds or tablets. It does it in onCreate but also after a drag/drop from the appscustomize.
From Launcher.java's onCreate:
// On large interfaces, we want the screen to auto-rotate based on the current orientation
if (LauncherApplication.isScreenLarge() || Build.TYPE.contentEquals("eng")) {
setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_UNSPECIFIED);
}

Pass through touch events to app beneath

I'm working on an Android Activity which should not be full screen and thus uses Dialog theme. This can be achieved by adding
android:theme="#android:style/Theme.Dialog"
to the activity definition in Manifest file.
Visually that does what I expect. However, when the user interacts with the device in an area outside of this activity, the app in the background does not receive this input.
Is there a possibility to achieve this?

that is not possible with your solution as there is only one Activity possible to be active. You could try that with Fragments but I doubt that you could open your App and navigate the Homescreen / whatever in the meantime.

Android back button does not restart activity?

My app intiates an activity. On the click of a button, the app opens up the browser with a webpage. When I hit the back button, it comes back to my initial activity screen, but does not resume or restart the activity.
When I put all the layout code and activity code in onResume instead of onCreate, the activity gets restarted.
My question is whether this is the right way to go about it? Can I use onResume to draw my layout and initiate the activity, or is this poor design? When the browser fires up, does the initial activity forget its layout?
Please let me know what you suggest.
Thanks
Chris

Mostly you should read about the Activity Life Cycle.
It is fine to initialize in onResume as long as you only do it once. Either have a dedicated hasInitialized member or check some other value that will have equivalent meaning, and do not initialize again if it is set.