Develop Reference

Launching activity from another application not displaying the activity, but it is running

I've done a lot of searching for the last day and haven't found anything that seems to match the problem I'm having.
(For reasons I won't go into) the app is divided into two separate apks. Each have activities. Only the "core" apk has a MAIN activity that is launched from the Android Launcher. The "plugin" apk has activities that only exist to be called from the first apk's activities and does not have a Launcher icon.
The issue I'm having is that when I create an intent to launch an activity from the "plugin" apk, it does the "launching new activity" sliding animation but immediately bounces back. But it is actually launching the activity because I'm seeing log statements in logcat coming from the new activity. I'm not getting any exceptions and it seems to be working other than the fact I'm not seeing the activity on the screen.
I've tried creating the intent in both of the following ways:
Intent myIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
myIntent.setClassName("com.test.plugin", "com.test.plugin.PluginActivity");
startActivity(myIntent);
and
Intent myIntent = new Intent();
myIntent.setComponent(new ComponentName("com.test.plugin", "com.test.plugin.PluginActivity"));
startActivity(myIntent);
But both result in the same thing happening as described above.

It bounces back means the plugin activity has some problem in launching.

Stop Google maps navigation programmatically

I currently start Google navigation from my application using something like:
Intent navigationIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse("google.navigation:q=" + latLong.getLatitude() + "," + latLong.getLongitude()));
Does anyone know how I can stop the navigation from my own application?
I have tried killing it but it seems I just do not have permission, is there any other way?

Does anyone know how I can stop the navigation from my own application?
You can't. Please allow the user to exit Navigation if and when they feel like it.

There is only one work around which I found,
Re-start the navigation with the current location, hence the navigation will automatically be finished.
public static void startNavigationIntent(Context activity, String destination)
{
Intent intent = new Intent(android.content.Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse("google.navigation:q=" + destination));
activity.startActivity(intent);
}
And then bring your app to the foreground.
Intent bringToForegroundIntent = new Intent(BackgroundLocationService.this, DashboardActivity.class);
bringToForegroundIntent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_RESET_TASK_IF_NEEDED | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
startActivity(bringToForegroundIntent);

I'm ten years late to answer this question, but just in case someone, like me, was still looking for an answer, I came up with a slightly different solution than the one suggested by Osama Ashraf above.
I tried out restarting the navigation by passing the current location, and it works most of the times, but the solution is not super reliable, as it might be that the current location provided by your app differs a bit from the one shown in Google Maps, and when that happens, it will not detect that the navigation finished automatically.
In order to always stop the navigation, I found out that you can pass a destination that is in a place where it's not possible to calculate a route to, like in the middle of the ocean. For example, using "0.0,0.0" as the coordinates will do the job.
val uriString = "google.navigation:q=0.0,0.0&mode=d"
val intent = Intent(ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse(uriString)).apply {
addFlags(FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK or FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP)
}
activity.startActivity(intent)
This will open Google Maps app again, so if you want to go back to your app you will need to launch another Intent to do so, probably after a couple of seconds delay, so it has time to handle the Google Maps Intent first. This is the code I use to do so:
Handler(Looper.getMainLooper()).postDelayed({
val intent = Intent(this, MainActivity::class.java)
intent.flags = FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK or FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT
startActivity(intent)
}, 2000)

Android Launching or bringing to front another application via Intent

Im having trouble getting this to work, here´s a quick overview of the idea.
First, I cant change the logic behind this, it was a specific requirement from the customer, I realize that with any tool such as AnyCut it could be bypassed but that doesnt matter really.
My customer offers a suite of apps, the idea is that all applications bellonging to the suite would be launched from a "Dashboard app", so that I only show the Dashboard app in the main launcher and not all app icons.
Lets take two Apps to get the idea solved. The Dashboard App (A) and the Recieving App (B).
I want to establish an intent filter (I think) on app B so that whenever I go into app A, and click the app B icon the app will be either launched or started from where it let of (brought to front).
Is this even possible? If so, how can I do it? I managed to get it to launch by specifically launching one activity in the app using:
Intent i = new Intent();
i.setClassName("PACKAGE_NAME","SPECIFIC_CLASS");
startActivity(i);
But that isnt the behaviour that I want, as it always starts app B in the same spot.
Thanx in advance,
Stefano
Edit: Added some new information. I was taking a look at the DDMS.
If I launch the application from scratch through the main Android launcher the intent is exactly the same as when I leave the home button pressed and then only bring the app to front, what ever activity im in. So I was trying to reproduce, unsucsesfully until now, this intent.
INFO/ActivityManager(1292): Starting activity: Intent { act=android.intent.action.MAIN cat=[android.intent.category.LAUNCHER] flg=0x10200000 cmp=com.example.package/.uiPackage.Activity}
This is how AnyCut does it
Intent { act=android.intent.action.VIEW flg=0x10000000 cmp=com.example.package/.uiPackage.Activity bnds=[125,242][235,360]}
Any idea how I could go about creating that exact same intent? I cant even find that flag in the Intent API.

Figured it out, this is how I did it.
Intent i = new Intent();
i.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
i.setAction("android.intent.action.VIEW");
i.setComponent(ComponentName.unflattenFromString("com.example.package/com.example.package.activityName"));
startActivity(i);

I'm not quite sure I'm following the expected results you want to see, but the following would launch the app from the dashboard and remove the dashboard from the activity stack leaving the selected app running:
Intent i = new Intent();
i.setClassName("PACKAGE_NAME","SPECIFIC_CLASS");
i.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
startActivity(i);
I believe this should start the app as if you were starting any other app.
Please add more information on your logic if this is not what you are looking for.

I think that when you switch activities android's default action is to sort of pause or hold the activity in its state the user left it in last. I know there is a way to make it so that the state is not saved when switching activities but I cant remember it off the top of my head.

Problem launching Google Navigation

i tried since many hours to launch navigation from my app.
I want navigation without destination.
i tried with
Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse("google.navigation:q="));
startActivity(i);
That launches navigation but with destination not found
I tried too to launch processName, packageName with startIntent with com.google.android.apps.maps,
com.google.android.apps.maps:driveabout and
**com.google.android.maps.driveabout.app.DestinationActivity
with no succes too :/
an idea ?

Google Navigation does not have any documented and supported Intent filters. It is not designed to be integrated from third party apps.

The following code should work...
String url = "google.navigation:q="+startPos.getLatitude()+","+startPos.getLongitude();
Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse(url));
startActivity(i);

Take a closer look a the intent filter for Google Navigation. It could be that it is not designed to be started via Intent without a specified destination. Unfortunately, i don't know where to find information about Google Navigation's intent filter, but if you were to show me where you are looking i could help you figure it out.

Try using
google.navigation:fd=true

i don't want to integrate it, i just want to launch it like a click on the list of apps whith a home launcher.
I've tried the google home sample, and navigation can be launched.
but i don't understand why that doesn't work with my own app :/

Opening browser activity, but prevent it from being in the activity history

I'm working on an app that launches the browser activity to perform a Twitter OAuth authorization. This process uses a callback url which will re-launch the activity that started the browser activity in the first place.
My problem is that the browser pages remain in the history stack and when the user then clicks back from the preferences activity that launched the browser in the first place, they don't go back to the app's main activity, but instead are brought back to the browser. I've tried adding flags to the launching intent to prevent history and reset on clear, but it doesn't seem to work when running on my phone, only on the emulators.
Here is the code I'm using to launch the browser activity:
Intent webIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse(authUrl));
webIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY);
webIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_WHEN_TASK_RESET);
webIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_EXCLUDE_FROM_RECENTS);
ctx.startActivity(webIntent);
Anyone have any idea what might be wrong?

Set the activity flag to Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP after starting it. This way, the task will be deleted form the app stack so your main activity remains the top one on every new launch:
ctx.startActivity(webIntent);
browserIntent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);

call
finish();
after
ctx.startActivity(webIntent);

Hi i have the same problem at the moment. I think the solution is to start the activity you want to return to with a special flag:
Intent intent = new Intent(this, acticityToReturnTo.getClass());
intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP);
startActivity(intent);
The problem is that is does not work (on 1.6 at least).. But maybe someone finds a solution for this. I think FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP is exactly what we.

I found that Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY works only if the browser was not running before. If I restart Android and run my app which call browser everything work well. But when I start browser before my app, browser will stay in history.
Here is related question also, but with no really working solution
How can I do that in Android. Activity -> WebBrowser -> Acrivity, but Press Back not see the WebBrowser