Hide android app Icon and run Activity - android

I can hide icons from a Menu, but then the app can not run.
Actually, it is a monitoring app. Can anybody help me?
What I want to do is hide the icon when app is installed on device I tried several ways but then app activity not show and I get error:
[2012-07-13 12:28:40 - Demo App] No Launcher activity found!
[2012-07-13 12:28:40 - Demo App] The launch will only sync the application package on the device!

why not just use a service? and/or a broadcast receiver?
anyway, so it wont install an icon, use this:
remove this from the intent filter in your manifest.
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
you might wanna add a receiver so reboot wont be required.

Related

Flutter: Wake up phone screen for alarm

I'm implementing an alarm application for Android with Flutter. With the android_alarm_manager package, I'm able to create and receive alarms. Furthermore, the package bringtoforeground is useful to bring the application to foreground when using another app. However, I haven't found a way to wake up the phone screen, yet. Does anybody knows how to do that? Also, It should be possible to have the application open without entering a password or something comparable.
Thank you in advance!
I've found an answer to my question. Additionally to the two packages said, there is a modification to be made in the AndroidManifest.xml file. Two more properties are needed in the activity tag as follows:
<activity
android:showWhenLocked="true"
android:turnScreenOn="true">

How to Hide Android Launcher Icon at Runtime while the App keeps being Upgradable

I have seen in other answers this code:
PackageManager pm = getApplicationContext().getPackageManager();
pm.setComponentEnabledSetting(getComponentName(), PackageManager.COMPONENT_ENABLED_STATE_DISABLED, PackageManager.DONT_KILL_APP);
This code indeed works, but if you try to reinstall or upgrade the app you can't start the activity that is disabled.
Is there any other way to hide the icon at runtime without losing the ability of reinstalling and upgrading?
Does anyone know?
Problems you encounter on install is because your only exported component (activity marked with main and launcher) is disabled by above code. You can add some other exported component to get back into the app (for example register broadcast receiver for GCM or SMS receive). Similar approach needs to be done to re-enable updating from play store (and even installing from eclipse). Unfortunately I am not certain what component needs to be added for those two.
Workaraound: You could send GCM broadcast to users and re-enable the launcher component before pushing the update but I think there are probably better ways.

Android Service application error - no launcher activity

I created a service application without any GUI...infact take help of other applications available on this website...but when i try to run it on my Emulator (2.3.3), I keep on getting error:
2012-02-13 17:36:56 - RUN_SERVICE] No Launcher activity found!
[2012-02-13 17:36:56 - RUN_SERVICE] The launch will only sync the application package on the device!
After it installs properly, but i dont see my service running...i tried adding toast messages, but I am not receving that as well...i didnt try it on real device yet...as I didnt have any phone with this android version 2.3.3. I am using jre6
As your applicatinon does not have any GUI.
You must start the Service from at least one activivity that may be lanucher acitivity by using
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER>
So that your Service need to start when the app is installed or Run.
Make sure you have defined the activity in your AndroidManifest.xml file....
I think you mentioned this in your manifest <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER>. if yes then remove this

How to start a Service when .apk is Installed for the first time

In my Application I am not having any UI part, so I need to start a Service as soon as the Applicaton gets installed on the Device. I saw many links from which the answer was that its not possible but I guess it is surely possible. Just have a look at PlanB Application on the Android Market that does fulfil my requirement. Below is my Manifest file how I tried, but the Service was not called at all. So, let me know what is the best possible way to start a Service when the Application gets Installed.
UPDATE
I also tried using android.intent.action.PACKAGE_ADDED it works fine for detecting the Package for the other Applications but not for itself.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="com.auto.start"
android:versionCode="1"
android:versionName="1.0" >
<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="8" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED"/>
<application
android:icon="#drawable/ic_launcher" >
<service android:name=".MyService">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</service>
<receiver android:name=".BootUpReceiver">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.PACKAGE_INSTALL" />
<action android:name="android.intent.action.PACKAGE_ADDED" />
<data android:scheme="package"/>
</intent-filter>
</receiver>
</application>
</manifest>
Fortunately, Plan B does not work on Android 3.1+, as tested on a XOOM and a Galaxy Nexus.
What Plan B does is exploit a security hole that could be used by drive-by malware, which is specifically why Android prevents it from happening anymore.
UPDATE
To clarify: As inazaruk posted and I put into comments on other answers, all applications, upon installation, are placed in a "stopped" state. This is the same state that the application winds up in after the user force-stops the app from the Settings application. While in this "stopped" state, the application will not run for any reason, except by a manual launch of an activity. Notably, no BroadcastReceviers will be invoked, regardless of the event for which they have registered, until the user runs the app manually.
This block covers the Plan B scenario of remote-install-and-run, which they were taking advantage of previously. After all, with that, anyone with a hacked Google account would be at risk of having their device infected, hands-free as it were.
So, when the OP says:
I need to start a Service as soon as the Applicaton gets installed on the Device
the OP will be unsuccessful and will need to redesign the application to avoid this purported "need".
Applications installed on the /system partition are not subject to being placed into the "stopped" state after installation. If you have root, you can do,
$ adb root
$ adb remount
$ adb push your.apk /system/app
And it can immediately receive broadcast intents. This certainly doesn't provide a general purpose solution, but i wanted to mention it for completeness.
EDIT: Keep in mind that different versions of Android locate system APKs in different places. For example, Android 8 puts them under /system/app//.apk. Shell into your device and poke around and follow the same scheme used for other system APKs.
I agree with CommonsWare's answer to question: How to start android service on installation. In other words, you can't automatically start your service after you've just been installed.
One more thing about newer Android platforms: if you don't have UI at all, you'll have trouble starting your service even when using BOOT_COMPLETE intent on Android 3.1+.
That's because all installed applications are in stopped state. In this state applications will not receive ANY broadcast notifications.
In order to activate your application some other application (or user) needs to start your service or activity, or content provider. The usual workflow is when user clicks on your application's icon.
I've written a detailed explanations about this in my blog post.
Plan B does this launch by listening to the events which happen in the system. It uses a receiver which literally listenes to hundreds of events hoping that some of them will eventually fire up. So this is how you can do it. Otherwise, there are no built-in means to launch the application as soon as it gets installed.
I'm not sure what your constraints/purpose is, but if you can install another application that has an activity you can have it send an intent with the flag FLAG_INCLUDE_STOPPED_PACKAGES.
This will use your application for the intent resolution, even though it's in a stopped state. If the action of the intent matches one of your filters, it will also bring the package out of the stopped state.
I don't think so You can start service immediately after installed your application on device,
The application must first be invoked by the user through some sort of Activity.The only things you have to register some Broadcast Receiver with appropriate intents in manifest which invoke you service when something is happening on device but this remaing to Android 3.1 version.
EDIT:
After Android 3.1+ onwards you can not use any Broadcast for starting your application, because all application remains in inactive state after completion of device boot and to launch the application the user have to invoke it.(By touching the app icon).
As stated by CommonsWare in the answer to this question (which I suppose you have all ready seen, but chose to ignore) starting a Service on install is not possible - it is simply not a thing that is implemented into the platform.
Starting it automaticly at the next boot is however possible.
As stated in the Technical Details for PlanB:
Plan B will attempt to launch as soon as it downloads, but in some cases you will need to send an SMS to get it started.
My guess is that on a rooted phone you might be able to start the Service on install - but there's no guarantee that the phone is rooted, which is why PlanB will require recieving a text in some cases because that can be registered by the IntentFilter of the app and then used to start the Service.
there is an app on google play Android Lost which invoke the registration service for google push messages via an incoming sms without launching the app even once for version 3.0+.
Perhaps the best way to accomplish this (and now I'm speaking to the specific intent of the OP, a program that gets installed in order to retrieve a stolen phone, not the general question) is social engineering, not software engineering.
So, an icon with text like "Password List" or "My Bank Accounts" which suddenly appeared on the home screen would undoubtedly be clicked on. Look at the success of all sorts of other phishing, and here you would be targeting a thief, who's already motivated to continue nefarious activity. Let the thief start it for you. :)
HEY I think using a BroadcastRecivier to automatically start the app on restart of device hence it will automatically start on device start.Hope this will help

How to hide app icon in app drawer programmatically

We know how to hide an app in app drawer (launcher) referring to hide one application in application menu of android , however, could we hide app itself within its code? I mean is it possible to remove activity's intent filter
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
dynamically within its code.
No. The manifest is read by the Android package manager system when it is installed. Afterwards, these values are read from it's own datastore and not from the manifest so without modifying the PackageManager or installing a different version of the app, these settings cannot be changed.
AFAIK, this isn't possible. The manifest states what your application can or can't do.
Think about permissions : they are required for proper code execution, but you can't change them once your application is installed. That should be the same for intent filters.

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