Develop Reference

How to programmatically connect to wifi in Android

I've been searching on this for quite some time, and have found lots of solutions that ultimately use the Android GUI to prompt the end-user for connection/confirmation. We would like to present a user with a form and directly connect to the specified network. I understand from a security perspective why this is necessary, but in our case, it is a system app going on a fully managed Android device. It is not intended for general use in the Play store. We are using Xamarin, but I can adapt any Java/Kotlin code.
The closest I've found thus far is the following (using C#):
public void ConnectToWifi(string ssid, string password = "") {
var wifiNetworkSpecifier = new WifiNetworkSpecifier.Builder().SetSsid(ssid);
if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(password))
wifiNetworkSpecifier.SetWpa2Passphrase(password);
var networkRequest = new NetworkRequest.Builder().AddTransportType(TransportType.Wifi)?
.SetNetworkSpecifier(wifiNetworkSpecifier.Build())?.Build();
if (networkRequest is null)
return;
var theNetworkCallback = new TheNetworkCallback();
var connectivityManager = (ConnectivityManager?)MainActivity.Current.ApplicationContext?
.GetSystemService(Context.ConnectivityService);
connectivityManager?.RequestNetwork(networkRequest, theNetworkCallback);
}
It sorta works, but does prompt the end-user, and my understanding, this approach is deprecated and doesn't work well in newer versions of Android. We're hoping for a solution that works in Android 11.
I'm even fine if there's a solution to write directly to wifi files on the OS. I've seen various solutions to manually populate entries via ADB, but I'm having a tough time adapting that to Xamarin/Java (can't seem to access the /data/misc/wifi directories). Again, this is intended for use exclusively on our own managed devices.

I have a blog post about this topic here: https://blog.ostebaronen.dk/2020/11/android-11-wifi.html
Android Network API is not the greatest thing to work with as there are pitfals depending on the API level the code runs on.
From Android 10 and up a lot of the Network stuff has been restricted for "privacy" reasons, so you cannot work around not asking the user for input, unless the device is rooted or your App is set up as Device Admin.
For Android 11, there is a new API to present a system dialog and allow the user to save and connect to a network. This will look something like:
You can launch this through an Intent called android.settings.WIFI_ADD_NETWORKS:
var intent = new Intent(
"android.settings.WIFI_ADD_NETWORKS");
var bundle = new Bundle();
bundle.PutParcelableArrayList(
"android.provider.extra.WIFI_NETWORK_LIST",
new List<IParcelable>
{
new WifiNetworkSuggestion.Builder()
.SetSsid(ssid)
.SetWpa2Passphrase(password)
.Build()
});
intent.PutExtras(bundle);
StartActivityForResult(intent, AddWifiSettingsRequestCode);
You can then get the result in your Activity overriding OnActivityResult and fetching the result like so:
if (requestCode == AddWifiSettingsRequestCode)
{
if (data != null && data.HasExtra(
"android.provider.extra.WIFI_NETWORK_RESULT_LIST"))
{
var extras =
data.GetIntegerArrayListExtra(
"android.provider.extra.WIFI_NETWORK_RESULT_LIST")
?.Select(i => i.IntValue()).ToArray() ?? new int[0];
if (extras.Length > 0)
{
var ok = extras
.Select(GetResultFromCode)
.All(r => r == Result.Ok);
// if ok is true, BINGO!
return;
}
}
}
I have a repository here with the full sample: https://github.com/Cheesebaron/Android11WiFi
From using this in the wild, I've found that this API does not work nicely with some OEMs such as OnePlus and Huawei. Some of these either restrict or the System Settings App simply crashes due to a misconfiguration on their part. For those I fall back to the API's introduced in Android 10.

How to open Android Outlook application from an external one

I'm currently developing an Android application in order to display home screen widgets. Those ones are related to Microsoft Outlook (Events + Messages) in order to show incoming events and unread new messages in a kind of dynamic tiles.
The Msal graph library helps me a lot to authenticate and retrieve in formations which contains an identifier for each event / message results
But now I want to know if the outlook application is installed on the user device and if there is a way to open Outlook when the user click on the widget. Moreover if the user can open the corresponding clicked event or message with the identifier.
For example the Event widget currently displaying a birthday event. The user click on it. Then it opens Outlook and display directly that birthday event.
Regards

I don't think this is officially documented somewhere. But here's what you can do to find out about it.
You can list all Microsoft applications installed on your device...
val packages = context.packageManager
.getInstalledApplications(PackageManager.GET_META_DATA)
for (info in packages) {
if(info.packageName.startsWith("com.microsoft", true)){
Log.d("package name:" + info.packageName)
Log.d("Launch Activity: " + context.packageManager.getLaunchIntentForPackage(info.packageName))
}
}
Take a note of the "launch intent" displayed in the LogCat. You can use that to launch Outlook. Just make sure you don't hard-code those values because Microsoft can change those values at any point, for example the activity class can change. So, instead of doing this...
context.startActivity(
Intent().apply {
action = Intent.ACTION_MAIN
addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_LAUNCHER)
setPackage("com.microsoft.office.outlook")
component = ComponentName("com.microsoft.office.outlook", "com.microsoft.office.outlook.MainActivity")
}
)
Do this...
context.startActivity(
Intent().apply {
action = Intent.ACTION_MAIN
addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_LAUNCHER)
component = ComponentName(
outlookLaunchIntent?.component?.packageName,
outlookLaunchIntent?.component?.className
)
setPackage(outlookLaunchIntent.package)
}
)
Also, remember that getLaunchIntentForPackage and component can return null, so make sure you check for null values properly

I am relaying a suggestion from a couple of internal folks:
Please try to open the event using one of the following URLs:
ms-outlook://events/open?restid=%s&account=test#om.com (if you have a regular REST id)
ms-outlook://events/open?immutableid=%s&account=test#om.com (if you are using an immutable id)
Since immutable IDs are still in preview stage in Microsoft Graph, and customers should not use preview APIs in their production apps, I think option #1 applies to your case.
Please reply here if the URL works, or not, and if you have other related questions. I requested the couple of folks to keep an eye on this thread as well.

Well, i managed to open the outlook android application with the help of your code #Leo. As im not developping with Kotlin, ill post the JAVA code below :
Intent outlookLaunchIntent = context.getPackageManager().getLaunchIntentForPackage("com.microsoft.office.outlook");
if (outlookLaunchIntent != null) {
context.startActivity(outlookLaunchIntent );
}
Below code to open event/message in a web browser provided by webLink property of the graph API. (I only test for event and the url provided not working. Ill post a new issue on StackOverFlow for that but you already see the issue over there : https://github.com/microsoftgraph/microsoft-graph-docs/issues/4203
try {
Intent webIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW).setData(Uri.parse(calendarWebLink));
webIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
context.startActivity(webIntent);
} catch (RuntimeException e) {
// The url is invalid, maybe missing http://
e.printStackTrace();
}
However im still stuck on the decicive goal of my widget item click which is to open the relative event/email in the Microsoft Outlook Android application.
Microsoft Outlook Android app contains widgets which can achieve what im looking for. So i wonder if it is possible to list its broadcast receivers.
The best thing i found is an old manifest for that app but it doesnt help me.
https://gist.github.com/RyPope/df0e61f477af4b73865cd72bdaa7d8c2

Hi may you try to open the event using one of the url:
ms-outlook://events/open?restid=%s&account=test#om.com (If the
user is having rest id)
ms-outlook://events/open?immutableid=%s&account=test#om.com (If
the user is having immutable id)

Unusual behaviour with changePage on android 2.3.6

I am building a phonegap app with jquery mobile and using build.phonegap.com
I have an event to change the page to the login screen after startup process have completed.
This works fine but it will not work on my andriod device unless a debugger is attached to it, in which case it works fine.
The code I have is
$.mobile.changePage("login.html");
I have put this in the mobileinit, pageshow, and now on document.ready function but it doesnt change the behaviour.
I've checked if $.mobile is a function and it is, Have tried everything and can not seem to figure out why this would be happening, any feedback would be much appreciated

I managed to put in a hack to work around this issue.
It was something to do with my phone being really old and slow, so something was getting a little messed up on old/slow andriod versions.
To prevent this from being an Issue I figured out this way that solves the issue and boots up my jquery mobile app on phone gap even if the phone is very slow.
$(document).bind('mobileinit', function () {
setTimeout(function () {
var html = $(".loading-status-text").html();
/* The html has Please Wait in the dom so we know it han't been touched by jQuery */
if (html == 'Please Wait') {
window.location.href = 'index.html';
}
}, 10000);
$(document).on("pageshow", function (e) {
var pageId = $.mobile.activePage.attr('id').toString();
if (pageId == 'loadingScreen') {
/* This wouldn't fire at first */
$(".loading-status-text").html("Welcome to Appname");
$.mobile.changePage("login.html");
}
});
});

mediaelement.js - android default browser and dolphin browser loading mp3 issues

Good day,
I'm currently building a website for myself (I'm a composer/producer), and I'm using Media Element for the main demo page. The page is under construction at the following link:
http://www.vincentrubinetti.com/listen.html
http://www.vincentrubinetti.com/listen.js
Below are what I think are the relevant functions and code:
function initPlayer()
{
player = new MediaElementPlayer('#listen_player',{
success: function (mediaElement, domObject)
{
mediaElement.addEventListener('play', resumeSong, false);
mediaElement.addEventListener('ended', playNextSong, false);
mediaElement.addEventListener('pause', pauseSong, false);
}
});
[omitted]
}
function setSong(element)
{
if (element != "")
{
unselectAllSongs();
document.getElementById(element).className = "listen_song_highlight";
[omitted]
var newSrc = document.querySelector("#"+element+" .listen_song_source").title;
player.pause();
player.setSrc(newSrc);
player.load();
}
}
function playSong(element)
{
document.querySelector("#"+element+" .listen_song_status").innerHTML = "playing";
player.play();
}
function playNextSong()
{
var newSong = document.querySelector(".listen_song_highlight + div.listen_song");
if (autoplay && newSong != null)
{
setSong(newSong.id);
playSong(newSong.id);
}
else
{
document.querySelector(".listen_song_highlight .listen_song_status").innerHTML = "stopped";
}
}
All the CSS end of this seems to be fine. It finds the next song on the list and sets the new source; I've verified it does this properly via alert and other debugging. However, on the Android default browser and the Dolphin browser, it seems to not be able to load the mp3 sometimes, and prematurely triggers the "ended" event to go to the next song. The result is that it appears to skip 2-3 songs after one is done playing. And it takes some finagling even to get it to play one, clicking on the song divs and the player play button. I can type in the same url that's in the html, and the browser will play/download it just fine, no problems accessing or loading it.
Here are the 3 mp3 files that repeat down the playlist, for reference. They are by me, but are placeholders for the real music.
NEW/music/creation.mp3
NEW/music/startup.mp3
NEW/music/win.mp3
Note that all of this works properly on Chrome, Firefox, IE8+, and Android Chrome (I haven't tested iPhone or iPad yet).
Is my diagnosis correct? Can anyone point me in the right direction? Is there any experience where MediaElement doesn't work properly on the Android default and Dolphin browsers?

I have the same problem in android (but with video...)
I was told that this is an issue with the file not being downloaded in time -- i.e. the browser starts the download, but since the file isn't downloaded it is 0:00 long, so the ended event is triggered.
If there is someway to make it so that the video / audio can be downloaded faster it solves the problem.
Strangely enough, if the device has good WiFi then this problem basically disappears.
See what John Dyer said about it here:
https://github.com/johndyer/mediaelement/issues/543

Does Android support window.location.replace or any equivalent?

It seems that the Android browser doesn't properly implement window.location.replace.
In most browsers, calling window.location.replace will replace the current URL with the URL passed to it.
When the user navigates somewhere else then clicks back, they'll be returned to the URL that was passed to window.location.replace, rather than the URL that they were at before window.location.replace was called.
The Android browser doesn't seem to implement this properly.
In the Android browser, the user will be directed back to the original URL rather than the one passed to window.location.replace.
You can test this for yourself here.
So is there any alternative way to re-write history in Android? Or will I just have to live without that feature, for Android users?

I had the same issue and ended up with code similar to chris suggestion, but I changed the if statement to use modernizr's feature detection.
If you're not using modernizr the code would look something like this:
if(!!(window.history && history.replaceState)){
window.history.replaceState({}, document.title, base + fragment);
} else {
location.replace(base + fragment);
}
Unless you have a specific reason for device detection, feature detection is preferred since it basically supports all devices, even future ones.

To make it work across all/most mobile platforms check out this link.
Shows how to handle redirect for Android, iPad and iPhone.
Android uses document.location whereas iOS supports window.location.replace

Will this work?
document.location.href = 'http://example.com/somePage.html';

You can try using the replaceState method on the history window.history
if (((navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf('mozilla/5.0') > -1 && navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf('android ') > -1 && navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf('applewebkit') > -1) && !(navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase().indexOf('chrome') > -1))) {
window.history.replaceState({}, document.title, base + fragment);
} else {
location.replace(base + fragment);
}