I wanna know whats the best way for moving through activites. What happens if i call intent from child activity to go back in parent activity? Do activities accumulate in memory?
To be precise, in child activity i have a button for sending sms message. I want to go to previous activity immediately after the message is sent (or button is pressed), because I want to stop user from pressing send button again.
If you want to go to the previous activity, simply call finish(). That will return to the last activity on the stack. That's usually the activity that invoked this subactivity, unless special flags are used in the intent.
Android activity should be stored in a memory stack.
After the button is clicked in child activity, if you call function finish(), it should return to the parent activity.
Related
I am new going for the android.I am working on an app in which I have two activities let say A and B.
In activity A I have a list view of some items.I have a button in activity A which takes me to activity B.In activity B I have a seek-bar.
I am using the seek-bar to filter the result of activity A.
I have two buttons in activity B cancel and filter.
After adjusting seek-bar if user clicking filter button than it takes user to activity A and showing filter results.
User can play between activity A and activity B.
Now three different scenario are there for coming back from activity B to A.
By pressing filter button
By pressing cancel button
By pressing phone's back button
After adjusting seek-bar if user pressing filter button then activity A is re ordering and showing filter results. Here I want to save the instance of activity B. so that from activity A if user again going in activity B then I can show the previous state of activity B.(I am able to do this)
In second scenario if user adjusting the seek-bar again and pressing cancel button then Activity A is reordering.Here I do not want to save the instance of activity B and if user again going in activity B from activity A then I want to show the previous state of activity B.(I am not getting how to do this ??)
In Third scenario if user adjusting the seek-bar again and pressing phone's back button then Activity A is reordering but now if user again going in activity B from activity A then activity B is restarting that I do not want, here also I want to show the previous state of activity B.(I am not getting how to do this also ??)
I am stuck with this problem.
Thank you so much in advance.
You must consider each of the cases and manage the activity lifecycle accordingly. You did this just fine, the problem is how to manage it. So, the first step is to study this:
activity and lifecycles
After understanding how the lifecycle of activities is handled by the android os you're on your way: Manage the life of your second activity so that state is mantained by overriding the onPause method (which is called when your activity is no longer in the front of the application) or finish the activity if you don't want to save the state (effectively calling the onStop method.
I would solve this in this way:
in activity A i call the activity B with a startActivityForResult. This way, when the activity B is finished, it's state is not mantained. So, call finish() inside activity B to return to activity A without saving it's state.
When wanting to save the state of activity b, call the activity A so that the onPause method gets called and the state saved.
Hope this clarifies it for you.
Pseudocode :
The initial Activity starts. (ActivityStartScreen)
A button is pressed that starts a new Activity (ActivityOtherScreen) by using an Intent.
The new Activity has a button that loads the initial Activity.
My question is, is the original activity gone once it 'loses focus' (when the 1st button is pressed), or is it stored somewhere, and is there a way to retrieve it?
Currently, Im re-creating the original activity with an intent. I bet this isnt the proper way.
The previous Activities are stored in the Activity stack, to return to previous activity, just call finish() on current activity. Note that this way you lose the 2nd activity.
You simply must call the finish() method from your second activity to go back with the states all being the same.
Here is a helpful warriorpoint blog post tutorial that will walk you through it.
I have not really understood the handling of activities and the stack.
I have 3 activities, A - a splashcreen, B- a menu and C another Activity. I start the splash and exits it after a while when the menu is started.
In code I handle them all like this:
startActivity(new Intent(this, ContactInfoMenu.class));
finish();
Now, if I start the app and goes A-B-C, when I hit "Back" in C screen I jump back to B-the menu. Another "Back" exits the application, just like I want.
BUT .. if I go A-B-C-B-C - the "Back" button in C screen exits the whole app instead of getting me back to the B screen?
Why is that? It does like that in all my "subscreens", I can only enter them once, if I enter them a second time the "Back" button exits the app. And I have not tried to catch the "Back" action anywhere? Shouldn't I always call "finish()" when I start a new activity?
Regards
Finish is good for leaving the current activity and going back to the previous one. Otherwise, try to avoid calling finish() if you can help it.
There are a set of flags that you can pass when you start an activity that do a better job of determining how that activity behaves on the stack. These include:
FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY - your activity will not remain on the stack after another activity covers it.
FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP - a good way to pop off a bunch of activities when you need to "go back" to a certain activity.
Many of these flags can be set in the manifest. Reading up on them will give you a better idea about "The Android Way".
Basically, You don't need to call finish() every time you go to another activity. If system is low on memory it will close your activity instance by itself.
finish() is more often used when yor are inserting some information in one page and then moving on to some other page. In that case, you might need to fininsh your first activity.
But in case where you need to shuffle between views, you must not use a finish() function, because it will cause the whole application to finish.
Try using back button of your own in your views to shift between activities, where you can move to any other activity of your application or even to the Main Screen.
I already know that I can pass Bundled data through setResult from one Activity back to another. However, suppose I have an global Activity that can be launched from anywhere in my app since it is mapped to a button that appears in my title bar in almost all of my activities.
Long story short, after it completes its user-driven process, I want it to signal back to the very first activity in the back stack, basically my Home activity, so that it updates the UI accordingly.
Part of the problem is that since if I use a BroadcastReceiver, it is unregistered when my activity is in the background, and it will not get the signal to refresh its data set.
What I want to achieve is the following:
From either Home (ActivityA), or any other activity (Activity B, C, etc...) that can open out my global activity (ActivityX), it should find a way to call back to ActivityA without bringing it to the front.
Should I use FLAG_ACTIVITY_FORWARD_RESULT and if so, how should I model it from my subsequent activities after Home. In other words, if I launch a child activity from Home, should I launch it with startActivityForResult with whatever request code I define and then pass FLAG_ACTIVITY_FORWARD_RESULT when opening my global activity so that the result will be set from there?
Also, suppose I launch a child activity from Home with a result, and then from my child activity I add more to the stack, from which I open ActivityX. Would the system still remember the result chain as long as I opened the first child from Home with a result?
EDIT: I am not looking for just clearing the entire stack back to home immediately after the process is completed in ActivityX; just a way to signal the Home activity to refresh it's UI when the user eventually returns to the Home screen. I guess probably setting a SharedPreference flag that Home checks in onStart when the user re-focuses on that Activity which in turn gives me the condition to do the end result, after which the flag is reset.
Your home-screen should just update it's UI in onResume, this way whenever a user returns to it will be displaying the latest data. There's no need to pass callbacks. Otherwise you could register a Broadcast receiver in onCreate (and unregister in onDestroy... not ideal) in your home activity and then send out a broadcast when you want the home activity to update (although the home activity shouldn't actually update itself until it is resumed).
Here's how to get back to your home activity:
Intent goHome = new Intent(getContext(), HomeActivity.class);
goHome.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
goHome.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
startActivity(goHome);
FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP: This ensures that when the activity is launched, it displays its initial activity.
FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK: we're starting a new task (i.e. the back button should not go back to the previous screen so that pressing back at your home screen will exit your app).
I'll update on the rest tomorrow.
I am totally new to android development....what piece of code shall I write to move back to the last activity from the current activity on a button click?
I use intents to switch between the activities but is there anything specific to resume back on the last activity?
Please advise...
Thanks,
Pressing the back button should do that "out of the box"...
If the user clicks on Back button, application will automatically take you to previous Activity. You don't need to do anything.
If what you pretend is to implement that action from current Activity, for example through a Back menu option, just call finish() in your Activity. You can call setResult before that, if you called that activity with startActivityForResult
Ger
By default back resume previous activity.
You should read this to better understand android Activities:
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/fundamentals.html#lcycles