Develop Reference

Android deep-linking. Intent doesn't reset when app is opened from history

I have a problem regarding Android task and intent management.
Scenario
User gets a push with a deep-link into the app.
We show a notification putting the URI into the Intent Data.
User clicks the notification and is taken into the app and redirected to some Feature1Activity described by the deep-link.
User looks around, and backs out of the app.
Later, user opens the app from history (long-press home or multitasking button).
Now the same intent that were used from the notification (with the deep-link in the Intent Data) is used to start the app.
Hence, user is taken into the Feature1Activity again.
Problem:
Starting the app from history (long-press home or multitasking button) does not reset the Task (which it does when launching from app icon).
I understand that starting an app from history is not supposed to reset the task since it is intended to be used as "get-right-back-where-you-were". However, in my case this is an issue since the launch of the app from a notification is a one time thing.
Anyone else encountered this problem? Anyone know any solution?
More in-depth
The intent inside the PendingIntent is built like this:
Intent intent = new Intent (Intent.ActionView);
intent.addFlags (Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
intent.addFlags (Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
intent.addFlags (Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_WHEN_TASK_RESET);
intent.setData (Uri.Parse (DEEP_LINK_URL));
I found out about the FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_WHEN_TASK_RESET just this day and really thought that it would git rid of my problem but it made no difference.
There are three activities of interest:
SplashActivity (main launcher & listener of the deep-linking schema -- this activity just redirects either to login or OverviewActivity)
OverviewActivity (authorized user's main activity)
Feature1Activity (any feature that the deep-link is pointing to)
What happens when the user clicks the notification is that the SplashActivity acts as a listener for the schema and converts the deep-link url to two intents to start up OverviewActivity and Feature1Activity using Activity.startActivities (Intent[]).
When I look at the intent from the notification inside SplashActivity it always contain the deep-link in the Data.
One work around
There is a work around, setting some booleanExtra field to the notification intent (for instance "ignoreWhenLaunchedFromHistory" = true) and then check in SplashActivity before redirecting
boolean fromHistory = (getIntent().getFlags() & FLAG_ACTIVITY_LAUNCHED_FROM_HISTORY) == FLAG_ACTIVITY_LAUNCHED_FROM_HISTORY;
if (fromHistory && getIntent().getBooleanExtra ("ignoreWhenLaunchedFromHistory", false))
// Don't follow deep-link even if it exists
else
// Follow deep-link
Except that it hackish and ugly, can you see any problems with this work around?
EDIT: The work around only works when I am responsible for sending the Intent with the deep-link. Since no external source can know about the "ignoreWhenLaunchedFromHistory" extra.

From what I get, maybe using android:excludeFromRecents="true"on your manifest (as a property for the Activity declaration) might ameliorate the issue?

Custom Action Intent Opens my App in the same context as the app that I clicked From

I have searched a lot on this.
But, I have my code working to open my app using a custom intent URL. This URL is usually delivered via email.
When I click on the link, it opens my app fine and everything seems to be working; however, it opens in the context of the email application.
For example, if I click on the link from Gmail, when I open multitasking, I have to click on Gmail to return back to the app that just opened.
I would think it should open my app and I can continue using Gmail while my other app is running.
Any thoughts on this?

Make your URL look like this:
intent:#Intent;launchFlags=0x10000000;component=com.mycompany.myapp/com.mycompany.myapp.MyActivity;end
This URL contains the launchFlag for Intent.FLAG_ACTIVIY_NEW_TASK, so this will launch your app in a separate task (outside of the email client or browser or whatever).
EDIT: Add additional details based on OP's comment
You say that you are using a URL like this: http://com.my.app/5058749
In that case you must have used an Intent filter to get Android to open your app by specifying an <intent-filter> on a certain <activity> in your manifest. There are several things you can do to deal with the problem of the launched Activity ending up in the same task as the Activity that launched it:
1) If the Activity is always intended to be the root (starting, first) Activity of a task, you can put the following code in onCreate() after the call to super.onCreate():
if (!isTaskRoot()) {
// Activity was launched into another task. Restart it in its own task
Intent intent = new Intent(this, this.class);
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
startActivity(intent);
finish();
return;
}
2) You can set the launch mode of this Activity to singleTask in the manifest by adding
android:launchMode="singleTask"
to the <activity> definition. This will cause the Activity to be launched in its own task but this launch mode has other consequences that are more subtle and so you need to be careful about using it. In general I don't like to suggest this because it tends to create more problems than it solves.
3) You can determine if your app was launched from the browser or email client by examining the Intent used to start it in onCreate() (The Intent will have the data set to the URL when launched via the browser or email client). You can then decide if you want to restart it in its own task by using the code I've supplied in option 1 above.

Add Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK and Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP flags(intent.SetFlags() to your intent. Your actitivty will be opened in a new task and this activity will be the root of your new stack.

This is the default behavior with android, but to override it, you need to pass
Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK
Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP
with your intent.

ACTION_SEND intent android

I am trying to pass a url to a specific app using the ACTION_SEND intent, I want to by pass the chooser and just go straight to the app i desire but it doesn't seem to take the url unless i use the chooser..
private void shareIt(){
Intent pC = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
pC.setType("text/plain");
pC.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "http://www.bob.com");
pC.setType("text/plain");
pC.setClassName("com.sec.print.mobileprint","com.sec.print.mobileprint.UI.WebPrint");
//startActivity(pC);
startActivity(Intent.createChooser(pC,"Share jon"));
}
if i comment out the last line and comment back in the line before it.. it opens the app i want bypassing the chooser, but the app opens to google instead of bob.com.. if i leave it as is.. it brings up the chooser and should i choose the app it goes to bob.com .. how can i get it to go to bob.com while bypassing the chooser?

I suspect that the Intent.setClassName method you’re calling takes an unqualified class name as its second argument (after all, why bother repeating the package name qualification?). Alternatively, you can use setClass instead.

Are you sure you need to pass the URL via EXTRA_TEXT and not by pC.setData(Uri.parse("http://www.bob.com");?

Open my application from another in android

My boss asked me to prove that my application behaves properly when summoned by another application (dunno why he asked that).
So I have two apps here, one launches a second one. How I launch the specific app I want? Using Intent launch seemly any generic app that reaches a certain goal, not the app I really want.

Give this a try.
Intent secondIntent = new Intent();
secondIntent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_MAIN);
secondIntent.setClassName("com.example", "com.example.YourSecondApp");
startActivity(secondIntent);
I should point out that com.example should be the package of your second application (the one you want to call) and com.example.YourSecondapp is the class name where you have your onCreate() method.

Intent secondApp = new Intent("com.test.SecondApp");
startActivity(secondApp);
Check out for more examples
http://developer.android.com/resources/faq/commontasks.html#opennewscreen

Create one Intent using the following code
Explicit Intent
When you know the particular component(activity/service) to be loaded
Intent intent = new Intent();
intent.setClass("className/package name");
start<Activity/Service>(intent);
Imlicit Intent
When we do not have the idea which class to load and we know the Action to be perform by the launched application we can go with this intent.
Action needs to set, and the Android run time fallows the intent Resolution technique and list out(one or more components) the components to perform the action. from the list out components (if more than one), user will get the chance to launch his chosen application

Launching external application from my app

I would like to launch an app the user selects from within my application. However, I'm not sure how I'd go about doing this. I've tried this:
Intent intent = new Intent();
intent.setAction(Contacts.Intents.SHOW_OR_CREATE_CONTACT);
startActivity(intent);
But this seems to throw an error and force close my application. I also tried adding:
<action android:name="Contacts.Intents.SHOW_OR_CREATE_CONTACT"/>
in the AndroidManifest file, but to no avail.
A look at Logcat shows that it's an "IOexception - no such file or directory". A couple of questions arise from this. I read through the Android docs and noticed that the Contact.Intents class is deprecated. However, it's successor, ContactContracts is aimed at API level 5 whereas I'm targeting API level 3. Could this be the problem? Also, I've hardcoded this application into the code. Is there a way to retrieve the intents of any application the user selects so that they can be launched?

You need to pass extra information into the intent to tell Android what you want to show or create. Otherwise Android doesn't know what activity to start and (presumably in your case) throws an ActivityNotFoundException.
For a contact, you use the generic Intent.ACTION_INSERT_OR_EDIT then use the MIME type of an individual contact (Contacts.People.CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE).
For example:
Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_INSERT_OR_EDIT);
intent.setType(People.CONTENT_ITEM_TYPE);
intent.putExtra(Contacts.Intents.Insert.PHONE, "+1234567890");
intent.putExtra(Contacts.Intents.Insert.PHONE_TYPE, Contacts.PhonesColumns.TYPE_MOBILE);
That will bring up the contacts app, prompting you to select an existing contact to add the phone number to, or to create a new contact.
You don't need to add anything special to your manifest to start external activities. Only if you were to directly manipulate the contacts ContentProvider would you need to add the appropriate CONTACT permissions to your manifest.

I use this code for that purpose:
Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_MAIN);
intent.setClassName("com.android.settings", "com.android.settings.Settings");
startActivity(intent);
This will launch the Settings app, you can use these also:
intent.setClassName("com.android.music", "com.android.music.MediaPlaybackActivityStarter");
intent.setClassName("com.android.contacts", "com.android.contacts.DialtactsContactsEntryActivity");
intent.setClassName("com.android.contacts", "com.android.contacts.DialtactsActivity");
The first starts the default music app, the second the contacts, and the third the dialer.
Hope this helps.

You need to pass in valid arguments to the apps you start. A lot of apps expect the data URI and / or certain extras to be valid.

Please try the following code:
Intent intent = new Intent(Contacts.Intents.SHOW_OR_CREATE_CONTACT);
this.startActivity(intent);
(sorry if there is something wrong on the syntax, I dont have android in this computer)
And remove the action from the manifest. that is not needed.
The action method is used for something else.
For more info, please look at the android site: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Intent.html
Daniel

The activity you are calling should appear not only in the Manifest for its own package, but in the Manifest for the CALLING package, too.