I'd like ask you if there's a way to send information or commands to other applications.
For example: a person is typing a message to one, and after ten seconds my program adds (by using the command append("text").to(EditText); ) a string like "hello" in the EditText of the message.
I discovered that information can be shared between different apps through ContentProviders
Is there a way to accomplish this?
This is only possible when the developer of this particular app predicted such behavior. It could be done simply by broadcasting intents between apps, but this "another" app must have a suitable Broadcast Receiver to make a use of this intents. http://developer.android.com/guide/components/intents-filters.html
Or, you can fire up an intent on another app and bundle your Data into it and pass it through Intent object. Check out this link. I purposely haven't written a code. I think everyone should learn on their own. Remember,The developer site is the Bible for Android.
Related
I want to make an app that takes info/data from other apps that are already installed on my phone ( Android ). By example: Let's say I want to make an app that shows how many messages I sent to each person with my phone. Then I would like to get my app linked with the message app on my phone and count how many times I sent someone a message , get that data, and put it on my app.
When I search for this problem, one 'solution' I found was working with intents, but it's NOT that, by far as I know, you can use intents to share data between apps you created yourself. I want to be able to get data from apps that I did not make. HOW? Thanks already
You can't, otherwise it would be a security issue, think about a bank app... In Android all the apps are fisically separated into different directories.
You can access data only from apps that expose methods, like Intent.
I want to create an app to consume real time data from an API. This API give me information about different temperatures. When a certain temperature is exceeded my app need to notify the event to the user.
This app need to run in Android and a web browser. So, my problem is the architecture... My app need to be a websocket or a REST API?
Any help is appreciated!!
You need a notification service, and google has something like that for us...
how does this works??
Take a look at the image below,
you need to register your android app in the google service, and your web interface will need an id, so everytime you want to push something to the android, your web interface instead will push it to the google server with the Id of the app, then google (no matter how) will localize your app, and even if its not running, they will get the notification,
behind the scenes there is a couple of thing that you must do, bu nothing like launching rockets from the NASA.
I will suggest to take a look to some tutorials
in order to start with the registration of your app, get the api key etc etc..
In addition to what #Xoce showed, Amazon has the SNS service which will push notifications to you. Or, if you application is a web based application inside of a native (i.e. Cordova), I've used PubNub for JavaScript based events.
A word of caution though - you'll need to define "real time" for your application. There will be a slight latency between the event and what your application sees no matter what stack you choose. When I think real time I think in terms of microseconds of delay. You may have seconds of delay. If this is a "hey, your house temperature is above a threshold" type of application then that is fine. If this is "hey, your nuclear reactor temperature is above a threshold" then this may not be the way to go.
i've a question for a feature, i want to implement.
I know some applications, like whatsapp, gmail or others, which run in background and notify the user, if something is received...
i'd like to do the same with my application. i've a http-network-connection and want to notify the user, even if he hasn't the application started. is something like this possible?
Is it possible, that a PopUp-Window, like receiving a sms, appears?
(if not, the notify-way in a titlebar is enough)
i've no idea, what i should google or where i can find help
Thank you a lot!
Edit: I found another very cool framework which deals with notifications. Have a loot at: https://www.parse.com/tutorials/android-push-notifications
You should take a look into Services. You can have the http connection listening in it. For the notification I'd use the NotificationManager class. A notification is much more less intrusive than a pop-up.
Hope that helps
Google Cloud Messaging will definitely help you.
If your server can instantiate this 'action' or 'event', by all means don't try to pull data periodically, coz that brings extra complexity to your app and also battery drain to your users.
But if you really, truly, badly need this behavior, you can instantiate a Service from your app's process. This can be done from many places, like your main activity or some other user action, or even from a broadcast listener. For example, our app has some parallel work to do, so we pass this to a service and that service is initiated by a broadcast listener listening for phone events like a phone call or sms.
On the other hand, just like the main activity of your app, your background service can be killed arbitrarily by the operating system any time. So you shouldn't depend on it running forever. You should have ways to check if that is still working in the background. Check alarm events or any other relevant broadcast listeners.
All I’m really looking for here is a little guidance. I’m trying to create my first official android app. I’m new to java/droid but not programming. Over the past month I’ve created quite a number of little experimental activities, services, threads and whatnot and they all function as planned. So now I’m trying to tie is all together but not having much luck.
In a new project I’ve compiled the guts into 'my.main.package' which runs a service that is constantly crunching data that other clients/apps can use… Well that’s my plan. For example, in this service is a custom thread/loop timer that is constantly counting. What would be the best way for any other apps to get a constant feed of this timer and other data as a listener could within its own sandbox and in the least taxing way possible?
I’m assuming one must implement aidl for IPC but I’m not sure if its needed and/or necessary as data from my.main.package is only outgoing, i.e. other apps only need receive/listen. I understand there needs to be some form of message handling or parcelable marshalling going on and possible permissions with aidl but I got to thinking that encoding/decoding a parcel or sending a message every millisecond would be very taxing. Is aidl the only way to go or is there a way to broadcast data as you can intent?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
In a new project I’ve compiled the guts into 'my.main.package' which runs a service that is constantly crunching data that other clients/apps can use
A service should only be running when it is actively delivering value to the user. Users think that developers who create services that run all of the time are idiots and attack their apps with task killers, force-stops from the Settings app, etc.
Perhaps your description is just depicting your app in a poor light, but "a service that is constantly crunching data" is an anti-pattern. These are phones and tablets, not servers.
What would be the best way for any other apps to get a constant feed of this timer and other data as a listener could within its own sandbox and in the least taxing way possible?
The best way is for them not to be separate apps in the first place.
For example, in this service is a custom thread/loop timer that is constantly counting.
This is not adding value to the user.
I’m assuming one must implement aidl for IPC but I’m not sure if its needed and/or necessary as data from my.main.package is only outgoing, i.e. other apps only need receive/listen.
A remote service using AIDL is one way of doing IPC. It is not the only way. It is not even the most common way. You can also:
send a broadcast Intent
have the client send a Messenger to the service, and the service sends messages to the client via that Messenger
have the service update a ContentProvider, and have clients register a ContentObserver on the ContentProvider
I understand there needs to be some form of message handling or parcelable marshalling going on and possible permissions with aidl but I got to thinking that encoding/decoding a parcel or sending a message every millisecond would be very taxing.
IPC is "very taxing" in general. Hence, IPC should be avoided wherever possible.
In fact, IPC with AIDL is the only & the most effective way to do your requirements, I think. If you need one demo, you can take a look here. It's a simple example I wrote to learn AIDL & Binder on Android. Hope it could give you some brief for starting.
I would like to extend the Android platform's default Gmail/Email applications either by plugging into their ContentProvider or by using intent filters. Essentially, I want to be able to scan incoming emails for special rules that will trigger events in my Android application. If scanning emails automatically isn't possible, then I would at least like to add a menu item to the email viewer screen that would allow the user to flag the email content as needing to be scanned.
Does the Gmail/Email applications allow you to extend them in this way?
For future reference, besides finding sample code or reading documentation provided by the author of an application, is there a standard way of finding out what intents are available for my application to use? Like a tool maybe?
Thanks,
Marc
Does the Gmail/Email applications allow you to extend them in this way?
Gmail is closed source, and so it is difficult to know what it does or does not support.
The Email application is not part of the public SDK, so trying to rely upon any ContentProvider it may have (and I don't know that it has one) would be a mistake, as your application is liable to break with subsequent Android updates.
I would at least like to add a menu item to the email viewer screen that would allow the user to flag the email content as needing to be scanned.
The only way to do that assumes Gmail/Email uses Menu#addIntentOptions(), and via Google Code Search, this does not appear to be the case.
You might consider contacting the developers of K9 to see if you could hook into their Android email application.
is there a standard way of finding out what intents are available for my application to use? Like a tool maybe?
Not really. Intent actions are just strings.