Launching an activity at its current state - android

I am trying to make a task switcher and I succeeded in it. My only problem is that when I launch activities, they are relaunched as they were new activities ( for instance, I am writing an email, I press home and go into my activity,launch email, and then the app launch the email bout goes back to the inbox and the email is lost) So that's not true multitasking.
Here are my steps:
1) getting all the running apps:
List<ActivityManager.RunningTaskInfo> allTasks = activityManager.getRunningTasks(30);
2) getting the intent:
for (ActivityManager.RunningTaskInfo aTask : allTasks) {
Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_MAIN);
i.setComponent(aTask.baseActivity);
(...)
3) Launching the application when clicking on the button:
intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK| Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_RESET_TASK_IF_NEEDED).addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_LAUNCHER);
monthis.startActivity(intent);
`
What is wrong with this code? Should I do something different to get it?
Thank a lot for any answer.

When creating the Intents you should not use Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK, you should use FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT.

Sorry if I made mistakes in my explanation, I am quite a "noob" and just tell here my experience to improve the result of people searching for the same answer than me.
In fact, I had to Use intent.setFlag(FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK | FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT) for the best result. Replacing was not the best Idea.
Not using FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK make the email application launch when I wanted to launch my own application. Because email was "linked" with the same task than my Application.
But Lucas, I keep your answer as the best.

I think I found the answer. Let me tell what i have done in simple words,
Suppose i am having two activities activity1 and activity2 and i am navigating from activity1 to activity2(i have done some works in activity2) and again back to activity 1 by clicking on a button in activity1. Now at this stage I wanted to go back to activity2 and i want to see my activity2 in the same condition when I last left activity2.
For the above scenario what i have done is that in the manifest i made some changes like this:
<activity android:name=".activity2"
android:alwaysRetainTaskState="True"
android:launchMode="singleInstance">
</activity>
And in the activity1 on the button click event i have done like this:
Intent intent=new Intent();
intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT);
intent.setClassName(this,"com.mainscreen.activity2");
startActivity(intent);
And in activity2 on button click event i have done like this:
Intent intent=new Intent();
intent.setClassName(this,"com.mainscreen.activity1");
startActivity(intent);
Now what will happen is that whatever the changes we have made in the activity2 will not be lost, and we can view activity2 in the same state as we left previously.
I believe this is the answer and this works fine for me. Correct me if i am wrong.

Related

More than one instance of activity due to intent

For an App I am developing, I override the back button to make it act like the home button so that the state of the main activity is preserved even when the app is exited. Now, I also send a notification to the user from time to time using a service. When this notification is pressed I want to open the main activity again. I noticed though that this creates a second instance of the app, which creates major problems. I am trying to make the main activity go to the front again, without calling oncreate again like so:
Intent to launch main activity again:
Intent notificationIntent = new Intent(this, MainActivity.class);
notificationIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT);
This doesn't work though. I still end up with two instances of my main activity. Does anybody know how to fix this?
By the way, I already have android:launchMode="singleInstance" in my manifest.
There's a way to force the OS to create only one instance of an activity and thats using the tag launchMode in the Manifest as shown below:
<activity android:name="YourActivity"
android:launchMode="singleInstance"/>
Hope this Helps...
Regards
Try adding this flag to the intent .addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP), works for me.

Android SingleTask not working

I have a multiple activities in my application. Two of them are a LoginActivity and the second one is a SettingsActivity. The user logs into the Settings activity and logs out of the application from the SettingsActivity. The flow of the application is LoginActivity -> HomeActivity -> SettingsActivity . The user calls the logout from the application in the Settings Activity. I call finish on the Settings activity and create an intent to the LoginActivity. This works fine, but when i press the back on the loginactivity the home activity appears. I want that once the LoginActivity appears the back button should take the application out of the application. How can i do this ?
The answer lies in FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP.
All you need to do is set the flag to your intent like shown below
Intent i = new Intent(this, LoginActivity.class);
i.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
startActivity(i);
finish();
That should pretty much do what you want it to do.
I believe this is what you are looking for:
How to clear the Android Stack of activities?
I wouldnt get too hung up on the fact that it doesnt actually finish() your LoginActivity - this is actually a pretty normal pattern to follow.
I had to use .FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK for this to work . I read this is supported after API version 11, will these do for all previous versions. Secondly how can i use these from the Manifest file and not the java code ?
intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK|Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);

remove activity from stack

I am developing an application in android. I am new in android.
In my application I have a category selection activity from that user have to check a check-box, based on that he will get view on another screen. I have a menu button in 3rd screen in that I have a button for selecting category, when I click on that button its also works fine but when I click back button it will redirect me 2 times at same activity... How to remove this problem? I have used finish() method but its also creates problem its get's me out from the application directly...
I want redirect to selection activity and it should not show me 2 times when I click back button ....
Is there any way please redirect me thank you.
a call to finish() should work so you schould check your code for multiple calling the wrong method or something like this.
Intent intent = new Intent(activity, activityClass.class);
activity.startActivity(intent);
finish();
you should also take a look at the Intent flags:
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK | Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY);
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT);
Your question isn't clear enough for me to know if this will solve your problem, but if you include the following attributes on your Activity in AndroidManifest.xml, the so-attributed Activity will never appear in your history list.
android:excludeFromRecents="true"
android:noHistory="true"
As for removing something from the history, I'm not sure how to do that, but I'm interested in the answer!
You should call finish before you call Intent and go to next activity. so the current task is finished and will not be saved in stack and then you intent activity will come on top of stack. If you directly want to go to Selection activity, override onBackPressed() and intent to the activity you want to go to.
There are different flags that you can use to control how your activity interacts with the activity history stack. Two that might be of interest to you are FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP and FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY.

Android AppWidget Configuration - Start in new task

I've searched and searched and searched for this!
So I've got an app widget and it has a configuration activity that I can open when pressing a button on the app. The scenario is:
Had the app opened.
Closed the app with the home button.
Selected to add my widget
I have configured the widget.
Placed on my home screen
Then open the configuration activity again with the button on the widget.
Cancel the new config by pressing back will put me back into the app.
When pressing back I want to just return home.
Basically what I'm asking is. How do I start the configuration activity in it's own task/stack?
I've looked into intent filters but I'm just not quite sure, or maybe it's something to do with the package it's in, or maybe it's just not possible!
I suppose it may have something to do with the intent I use to launch the config activity
Intent configIntent = new Intent(this, Configuration.class);
configIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
remoteView.setOnClickPendingIntent(R.id.config, PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0, configIntent, PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT));
Perhaps because I launch it with 'this' as the context, it will always start in my applications stack...
but the pending intent api is:
PendingIntent API 1
"Note that the activity will be started outside of the context of an existing activity"
So yeah I'll stop talking now as I just end up going in circles!
EDIT
So tried android:launchMode="singleInstance" in the manifest like was stated. This worked however it stops the 'startActivityForResult' behaviour working correctly. (which is the whole reason for a config activity) Get the error:
WARN/ActivityManager(59): Activity is launching as a new task, so cancelling activity result.
So still haven't found a solution.
Ok sorted it :-) needed:
android:taskAffinity=""
in the manifest, setting the task affinity to an empty string allows for the activity to start in it's own stack, as it is not 'affiliated' with the rest of the application.
UPDATE
I have changed the task affinity to:
android:taskAffinity="com.my.package.alternative.task"
as each time I launched the activity it was showing up multiple times in the 'history'. So it now starts in it's own stack but is shared with other instances of the same activity.
Also need to add the Flag Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY to your intent :-) this stops your getting your application multiple time's in the history when you 'press and hold' the home button.
UPDATE
I've noticed FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY wasn't doing what I wanted, I've removed it and added:
android:excludeFromRecents="true"
into the activity tag in the manifest as well. The activity now behaves like I want :-)
Got this answer from the following link trail:
Tasks & Back Stack |
Managing Tasks |
Affiliation Tag
Try to put android:launchMode="singleInstance" for an activity of the app in AndroidManifest.xml

How i can close/exit button on my app?

i have a button to close my app with this code:
finish();
the problem is that this button doesn't exit of my app... it simply closes the current intent ant returns to the previous intent (window) of my app....
how i can do a real exit/close button?
i tryed with this:
Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_MAIN);
intent.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_HOME);
intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
startActivity(intent);
but it doesn't works, because when i turn back into my app, the app comes in the last opened window, and not in the first window of the app, how i can do that? i need that when i re-open my app it starts on the first window of my app
If you really want your app to die. You could initiate each intent with startActivityForResult(). then before each finish() set the result to send back. in each parent activity you can override onActivityResult() to test whether the result received means the application needs to end. if so you can call another set result and finish(). repeat this in all activities and you will find that your application terminates entirely.
Incidentally I'm writing this from memory. function names may not be exact.
Hope that helps.
p.s. re-read your requirements. you can always stop the finish loop at your first activity.
I would do it this way:
I would define my initial activity (i.e. MainMenu) with a Launch Mode of singleTop
I would then invoke my MainMenu from the activity that is going to close the application.
startActivity(new Intent(this, MainMenu.class).addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP).putExtra("closeProgram", true);
Then override the onNewIntent in the MainMenu activity; check for the extra boolean of "closeProgram", if the value is true, then do a finish();
Haven't tried it but I think it should work.
I recommend you read this: http://blog.radioactiveyak.com/2010/05/when-to-include-exit-button-in-android.html
Chances are, you don't want an exit button. Perhaps a logout button, but that's it.
finish() closes activity (this is what you call intent, but it's not correct), not application. Application can not be finished at all (only forcefully killed like task killers do). You should design your activity stack in such a way that it will suit your needs. May be you should look at stack rearrangement examples in ApiDemos.
you can try this: System.exit(0);

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