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Manifest for home intent and launcher intent

What I have done is made a home screen application. Aka when you press home, it goes back to my app.
What I am struggling with though, is adding a normal launcher side to it, aka making it appear as an app in the apps menu. My intention is to create a simple screen that tells you and provides button access to change the home default settings. A wizard/setup guide in effect.
However, I am not sure how to have both together in one app, as it is something new to me.
The home bit works, it is the second activity that doesnt.
Manifest:
<activity
android:name=".HomeActivity"
android:configChanges="orientation|keyboardHidden|screenSize"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:launchMode="singleTask"
android:theme="#style/FullscreenTheme">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.HOME"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
</intent-filter>
</activity>
<activity android:name=".LauncherActivity">
<intent-filter>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER"/>
</intent-filter>
</activity>

Add the android.intent.action.MAIN inside the LauncherActivity Intent filter so it looks like this
<activity
android:name=".HomeActivity"
android:configChanges="orientation|keyboardHidden|screenSize"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:launchMode="singleTask"
android:theme="#style/FullscreenTheme">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.HOME"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
</intent-filter>
</activity>
<activity android:name=".LauncherActivity">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/>
</intent-filter>
</activity>

ActivityAlias label not taken from resource

I have two launcher in my app, one is a normal activity with the intent-filter for launcher/main and the other one is an activityAlias.
For both, I supply labels in the manifest via my strings.xml resources.
The reason for this is, that I want to provide different labels in different
locales.
Unfortunately only the label of my activity is changed accordingly to the
language selected in the android settings.
Why is that?
<activity
android:name=".MainActivity"
android:icon="#drawable/ic_launcher"
android:label="#string/app_name"
android:screenOrientation="portrait"
android:theme="#style/AppTheme.Transparent">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER"/>
</intent-filter>
</activity>
and the alias
<activity-alias android:name=".MainAlias"
android:enabled="true"
android:exported="true"
android:icon="#drawable/alias_icon"
android:label="#string/alias_label"
android:targetActivity=".MainActivity">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER"/>
</intent-filter>
</activity-alias>

Android - How to change entry point of App without removing shortcuts?

So, in a previous version of my Application, I had an entry point named MainActivity
<activity
android:name=".MainActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name" >
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
This version, I have a new entry point for my application, which then re-directs to MainActivity or another screen programmatically. Here are the two activities:
<activity
android:name=".NewEntryPoint"
android:label="#string/title_activity_second" >
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
<activity
android:name=".MainActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name" >
<intent-filter>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
I removed the action.MAIN from main activity and set it to my NewEntryPoint. However, any users that had the application as a shortcut on their homescreen will lose the shortcut. Keeping the Launcher category in MainActivity didn't help either.
Is there a way to change entry point of my App without removing shortcuts?
Thanks!

I believe you could use activity-alias for this, but I would question whether or not it's worth the future maintenance just to avoid users having to add a shortcut to your app again. Something like this:
<activity-alias
android:name=".MainActivity"
android:targetActivity=".NewEntryPoint">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER"/>
</intent-filter>
</activity-alias>

Issue with launching Android application via Intents

My problem is thus; I am new to programming on the ANDROID platform and have a 'working' application that piggy-backs on the API-Docs example. I wish it to launch three tabs one containing a list of reports, one a form to file a report and the last to show the geo-located reports. It doesn't appear as a separate application, it instead appears as a list to be launched by the API-Docs example. Below is my manifest code...
<activity android:name=".HelloFlamingos">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.SAMPLE_CODE" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
<activity android:name=".Controls2" android:label="#string/app_name">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.TAB" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
<activity android:name=".List1" android:label="#string/app_name">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.TAB" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
<activity android:name=".ReviewTab" android:label="#string/app_name">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.TAB" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
</application>
<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="3" />
HelloFlamingos is the initial page that I wish to be displayed, I realise that the intents for this are wrong, have thought about using category: VIEWS, action: DEFAULT, however is seemingly unwilling to work. Thanks!

In what context is the activity started? If you're looking to have the HelloFlamingos activity the first displayed from the Android OS, you should change its category in the manifest to category.LAUNCHER.
If you're looking to start the activity from elsewhere in your app, create an Intent which matches what you've specified (category.SAMPLE_CODE) and use startActivity or startActivityForResult.

Too many Activities being started when launching an Android Application

I am confirming about creating activity.
My Manifest.xml is like this :
<application android:icon="#drawable/icon" android:label="#string/app_name">
<activity android:name=".FirstActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
<activity android:name=".SecondActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
<activity android:name=".ThirdActivity"
android:label="#string/app_name">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
You can see property action android:name= property is "android.intent.action.MAIN" and
category android:name= is "android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" for all activities.
When the application starts up, it calls FirstActivity.
Then calls useless Activity such as ThirdActivity or SecondActivity.
In this case, is my manifest.xml correct?
Or, do I need to set another property to Second and Third activity?
If so, what is that?
I wonder manifest.xml file is right for my case.
Please advise.

Try this config:
<application android:icon="#drawable/icon" android:label="#string/app_name">
<activity android:name=".FirstActivity" android:label="#string/app_name">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
<activity android:name=".SecondActivity" android:label="#string/app_name">
<intent-filter>
</intent-filter>
</activity>
<activity android:name=".ThirdActivity" android:label="#string/app_name">
<intent-filter>
</intent-filter>
</activity>

Think of an Intent as message used to start an Activity to do something. So I can create an Intent to view a web page and an application with an Activity which knows how to view a web page - most likely the browser - can intercept his Intent as act on it.
You tell Android which Activities can act on which Intents using the <intent-filter> part of your Manifest.
The MAIN Intent is a special one. This is sent to an application when it is launched and basically it says "Go!" So the Activity which shoud be displayed first needs to intercept this by having a correctly defined <intent-filter>.
As you had all three Activities with MAIN in their filter they all responded to the request to start your application. So you should have that <intent-filter> only for FirstActivity.

One of the other problems with using
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" /> for more than one activity is that the Phone's launcher menu will display more than one icon...
From the docs:
CATEGORY_LAUNCHER The activity can
be the initial activity of a task and
is listed in the top-level application
launcher.