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In the previous chapter, you learned about Android interface design by creating a simple application called GuiExam. The chapter also covered the state transition of activities, the Context class, and an introduction to intents and the relationship between applications and activities. You learned how to use a layout as an interface, and how button, event, and inner event listeners work. In this chapter, you learn how to create an application with multiple activities; examples introduce the explicit and implicit trigger mechanisms of activities. You see an example of an application with parameters triggered by an activity in a different application, which will help you understand the exchange mechanism for the activity’s parameters.

Applications with Multiple Activities

The application in the previous example has only one activity: the main activity, which is displayed when the application starts. This chapter demonstrates an application with multiple activities, using the activity-intent mechanism, and shows the changes needed in the AndroidManifest.xml file.

As previously described, an activity is triggered by an intent. There are two kinds of intent-resolution methods: explicit match (also known as direct intent) and implicit match (also known as indirect intent). A triggering activity can also have parameters and return values. Additionally, Android comes with a number of built-in activities, and therefore a triggered activity can come from Android itself, or it can be customized. Based on these situations, this chapter uses four examples to illustrate different activities. For the explicit match, you see an application with or without parameters and return values. For the implicit match, you see an application that uses activities that come from the Android system or are user defined.

Triggering an Explicit Match of Activities with No Parameters

Using explicit match without parameters is the simplest trigger mechanism of the activity intent. This section first uses an example to introduce this mechanism and later covers more complex mechanisms.

The code framework of the activity-intent triggering mechanism for explicit matching includes two parts: the activities of the callee (being triggered) and those of the caller (trigger). The trigger is not limited to activities; it can also be a service, such as a broadcast intent receiver. But because you have only seen the use of activities so far, the triggers for all the examples in this section are activities.

  1. 1.

    The source code framework for the activity of the callee does the following:

  2. a.

    Defines a class that inherits from the activity.

  3. b.

    If there are parameters that need to be passed, then the source code framework of the activity calls the Activity.getIntent() function in the onCreate function to obtain the Intent object that triggers this activity, and then gets the parameters being passed through functions like Intent.getData (), Intent.getXXXExtra (), Intent.getExtras (), and so on.

  4. c.

    Writes code for the normal activity patterns.

  5. d.

    If the trigger returns values, does the following before exiting the activity:

  6. i.

    Defines an Intent object

  7. ii.

    Sets data values for the intent with functions like Intent.putExtras()

  8. iii.

    Sets the return code of the activity by calling the Activity.setResult() function

  9. e.

    Adds the code for the activity of the callee in the AndroidManifest.xml file.

  10. 2.

    The code framework for the activity of the callee does the following:

  11. a.

    Defines the Intent object, and specifies the trigger’s context and the class attribute of the triggered activity.

  12. b.

    If parameters need to be passed to the activity, sets the parameters for the Intent object by calling functions of the intent like setData(), putExtras(), and so on.

  13. c.

    Calls Activity.startActivity(Intent intent) function to trigger an activity without parameters, or call Activity.startActivityForResult(Intent intent, int requestCode) to trigger an activity with parameters.

  14. d.

    If the activity needs to be triggered by the return value, then the code framework rewrites the onActivityResult() function of the Activity class, which takes different actions depending on the request code (requestCode), result code (resultCode), and intentions (Intent) values.

In step 2a, the class attribute of the triggered activity is used, which involves a Java mechanism called reflection. This mechanism can create and return an object of the class according to the class name. The object of the triggered activity is not constructed before the triggering; therefore triggering the activity also means creating an object of that class so that subsequent operations can continue. That is, triggering the activity includes the operation of the newly created class objects.

The following two examples illustrate the code framework in detail. This section describes the first one. In this example, the triggered activity belongs to the same application as the activity of the trigger, and the triggered activity does not require any parameters and does not return any values. The new activity is triggered via a button, and its activity interface is similar to the interface of the example in the section “Exit Activities and Application.” in Chapter 2, Figure 2-16. The entire application interface is shown in Figure 3-1.

Figure 3-1.
figure 1

The application interface with multiple activities in the same application without parameters

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After the application starts, the application’s main activity is displayed, as shown in Figure 3-1(a). When the Change To The New Interface Without Parameters button is clicked, the app displays the new activity, as shown in Figure 3-1(b). Clicking the Close Activity button causes the interface to return to the application’s main activity, as shown in Figure 3-1(c).

Create this example by modifying and rewriting the example in the GuiExam section in Chapter 2, as follows:

  1. 1.

    Generate the corresponding layout file for the triggered activity:

    1. a.

      Right-click the shortcut menu in the res\layout subdirectory of the application, and select New ➤ Other Items. A New dialog box pops up. Select the \XML\XML File subdirectory, and click Next to continue. In the New XML File dialog box, enter the file name (in this case noparam_otheract.xml), and click Finish. The entire process is shown in Figure 3-2.

Note

The file name is the name of the layout file. You must use only lowercase letters for compilation to be successful; otherwise you will get the error “Invalid file name: must contain only a-z0-9_.”

Figure 3-2.
figure 2

The layout file for the triggered activity

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You can see the newly added xxx.xml file (in this case, noparam_otheract.xml) in the project’s Package Explorer, as shown in Figure 3-3.

Note

The layout editor window on the right is still empty, and there is no visible interface so far.

Figure 3-3.
figure 3

Initial interface of the application’s newly added layout file

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  1. b.

    Select the Layouts subdirectory in the left palette, and drag the layout control (in this case, RelativeLayout) onto the window in the right pane. You immediately see a visible (phone-screen shaped) interface, as shown in Figure 3-4.

Figure 3-4.
figure 4

Drag-and-drop layout for the newly added layout file

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  1. c.

    Based on the same methodology described in the section “Using ImageView” in Chapter 2, place an ImageView and a button in the new layout file. Set the ImageView widget’s ID attribute to @+id/picture and the Button widget’s ID attribute to @+id/closeActivity. The Text property is “Close Activity,” as shown in Figure 3-5. Finally, save the layout file.

Figure 3-5.
figure 5

Final configuration of the newly added layout file

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  1. 2.

    Add the corresponding Activity class for the layout file (Java source files). To do so, right-click \src\com.example.XXX under the project directory, and select New ➤ Class on the shortcut menu. In the New Java Class dialog box, for Name, enter the Activity class name corresponding to the new layout file (in this case, TheNoParameterOtherActivity). Click Finish to close the dialog box. The whole process is shown in Figure 3-6.

Figure 3-6.
figure 6

Corresponding class for the newly added layout file

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You can see the newly added Java files (in this case, TheNoParameterOtherActivity.java) and the initial code, as shown in Figure 3-7.

Figure 3-7.
figure 7

Corresponding class and initial source code of the newly added layout

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  1. 3.

    Edit the newly added .java file (TheNoParameterOtherActivity.java). This class executes the activity of the triggered activity (callee). Its source code is as follows (bold text is added or modified):

Line #        Source Code

1  package com.example.guiexam;

2 import android.os.Bundle;                 // Use Bundle class

3 import android.app.Activity;              // Use Activity Class

4 import android.widget.Button;             // Use Button class

5 import android.view.View;                 // Use View class

6 import android.view.View.OnClickListener; // Use OnClickListener Class

7  public class TheNoParameterOtherActivity extends Activity {

8  // Define Activity subclass

9 @Override

10 protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

11 // Define onCreate method

12 super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

13 // onCreate method of calling parent class

14 setContentView(R.layout.noparam_otheract);

15 // Set layout file

16 Button btn = (Button) findViewById(R.id.closeActivity);

17 // Set responding code for <Close Activity> Button

18 btn.setOnClickListener(new /*View.*/OnClickListener(){

19 public void onClick(View v) {

finish();

// Close this activity

}

});

}

   }

In line 7, you add the superclass Activity for the newly created class. The code in lines 8 through 18 is similar to the application’s main activity. Note that in line 14, the code calls the setContentView() function to set the layout for Activity, where the parameter is the prefix name of the new layout XML file created in the first step.

  1. 4.

    Edit the code for the trigger (caller) activity. The trigger activity is the main activity of the application. The source code is MainActivity.java, and the layout file is activity_main.xml. The steps for editing are as follows:

    1. a.

      Edit the layout file, delete the original TextView widgets, and add a button. Set its ID property to @+id/goTONoParamNewAct and its Text property to “Change to interface without Parameter,” as shown in Figure 3-8.

Figure 3-8.
figure 8

Layout configuration for the trigger activity

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  1. b.

    Edit the source code file of the trigger activity (in this case, MainActivity.java) as follows (bold text is either added or modified):

Line #        Source Code

1  package com.example.guiexam;

2  import android.os.Bundle;

3  import android.app.Activity;

4  import android.view.Menu;

5 import android.content.Intent;           // Use Intent class

6 import android.widget.Button;            // Use Button class

7 import android.view.View.OnClickListener;

8 import android.view.View;

9  public class MainActivity extends Activity {

10     @Override

11     public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

12         super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

13         setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

14 Button btn = (Button) findViewById(R.id.goTONoParamNewAct);

15 btn.setOnClickListener(new /*View.*/OnClickListener(){

16 public void onClick(View v) {

17 Intent intent = new Intent(MainActivity.this, TheNoParameterOtherActivity.class);

18 startActivity(intent);

19 }

20 });

21     }

22     @Override

23     public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {

24         getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.activity_main, menu);

25         return true;

26     }

27 }

The code in line 17 defines an intent. The constructor function prototype in this case is

Intent(Context packageContext, Class<?> cls)

The first parameter is the trigger activity, in this case the main activity; this, because it is used inside the inner classes, is preceded by class-name modifiers. The second parameter is the class of the callee (being triggered) activity. It uses the .class attribute to construct its object (all Java classes have the .class attribute).

Line 18 calls startActivity, which runs the intent. This function does not pass any parameters to the triggered activity. The function prototype is

void Activity.startActivity(Intent intent)

  1. 5.

    Edit the AndroidManifest.xml file. Add descriptive information for the callee activity (bold text is added) to register the new Activity class:

Line #        Source Code

1  <manifest xmlns:android=" http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android "

2      package="com.example.guiexam"

3      android:versionCode="1"

4      android:versionName="1.0" >

...      ... ...

10     <application

11         android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"

12         android:label="@string/app_name"

13         android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >

14         <activity

15             android:name=".MainActivity"

16             android:label="@string/title_activity_main" >

17             <intent-filter>

18                 <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

19

20                 <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />

21             </intent-filter>

22         </activity>

23 <activity android:name=".TheNoParameterOtherActivity" android:label="the other Activity"/>

24     </application>

25

26 </manifest>

You can also replace this XML code with the following methods:

  • Method 1:

<activity android:name="TheNoParameterOtherActivity" android:label=" the other Activity"> </activity>

  • Method 2:

  • <activity android:name=".TheNoParameterOtherActivity " />

Method 3:

<activity android:name=" . TheNoParameterOtherActivity"></activity>

The content of the android: name text field is the class name of the callee’s activity: TheNoParameterOtherActivity.

Note that if a period (.) is added before the name of the Activity class android: name, the compiler will give you the following warning at this line in the XML file (only a warning, not a compile error):

Exported activity does not require permission

Triggering Explicit Matching of an Activity with Parameters of Different Applications

The previous sections introduced triggering another activity without parameters in the same application. The activity of the trigger is that the callee allows the exchange of parameters: the trigger can specify certain parameters to the callee, and the callee can return those parameter values to the trigger on exit. Additionally, the callee and the trigger can be in completely different applications. This section shows an example of an application with parameters triggered by an activity in a different application. This example will help you understand the exchange mechanism for the activity’s parameters.

Use the same GuiExam application from Chapter 2. The interface is shown in Figure 3-9.

Figure 3-9.
figure 9

The interface of multiple activities in different applications

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As shown in Figure 3-9, the trigger activity is in the GuiExam application, where there is a variable to accept the weather condition entry. The interface in Figure 3-9(a) displays when the GuiExam application is opened. Click the Enter New Interface To Modify The Weather box to trigger the activity in HelloAndroid. When this activity starts, it displays the new weather condition passed in the Set New Weather text box, as shown in Figure 3-9(b). Now enter a new weather condition value in the Set New Weather, and click OK Change to close the trigger’s activity. The new value returned from Set New Weather refreshes the Weather variable in the trigger’s activity, as shown in Figure 3-9(d). If you click Cancel Change, it does the same thing and closes the activity, but the value Weather does not change, as shown in Figure 3-9(f).

The process list for the executing application is shown in Figure 3-10 (displayed in the DDMS window of the host machine in Eclipse).

Figure 3-10.
figure 10

Process list in DDMS for the multiple-activity application

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Figure 3-10 shows that when the application starts, only the process for the trigger, GuiExam, is running. But when you click Enter New Interface To Modify The Weather, the new activity is triggered and the process for the new activity HelloAndroid runs, as shown in Figure 3-10(b). When you click Confirm Change or Cancel Change, the triggered activity turns off, but the HelloAndroid process does not quit, as shown in Figure 3-10(c). Interestingly, even though the GuiExam trigger process exits, the HelloAndroid process to which the triggered activity belongs is still in the running state.

The build steps are as follows:

  1. 1.

    Modify the GuiExam code of the trigger application:

    1. a.

      Edit the main layout file (activity_main.xml in this case) by deleting the original TextView widgets; then add three new TextView widgets and a button. Set their properties as follows: set the Text property for two TextViews to “This interface is the activity of the Caller in GuiExam application” and “Today’s Weather:”. Set the third TextView’s ID property to @+id/weatherInfo. The Text property of the button is “Enter New Interface to Change Weather”, and its ID attribute is @+id/modifyWeather. Adjust the size and position of each widget as shown in Figure 3-11.

Figure 3-11.
figure 11

The main layout design for the GuiExam trigger application

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  1. b.

    Modify the content of MainActivity.java as shown here:

Line#        Source Code

1  package com.example.guiexam;

2  import android.os.Bundle;

3  import android.app.Activity;

4  import android.view.Menu;

5 import android.widget.Button;             // Use Button class

6 import android.view.View;                 // Use View class

7 import android.view.View.OnClickListener; // Use View.OnClickListener class

8 import android.widget.TextView;           // Use TextView class

9 import android.content.Intent;            // Use Intentclass

10 public class MainActivity extends Activity {

11 public static final String INITWEATHER = " Sunny; // /Initial Weather

12 public static final int MYREQUESTCODE =100;

13 //Request Code of triggered Activity

14 private TextView tv_weather;

15 // The TextView Widget that displays Weather info

16     @Override

17     public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

18         super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

19         setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

20 tv_weather = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.weatherInfo);

21 tv_weather.setText(INITWEATHER);

22 Button btn = (Button) findViewById(R.id.modifyWeather);

23 //Get Button object according to resource ID #

24 btn.setOnClickListener(new /*View.*/OnClickListener(){

25 //Set responding code click event

26 public void onClick(View v) {

27 Intent intent = new Intent();

28 intent.setClassName("com.example.helloandroid",

29 // the package ( application) that the triggered Activity is located

30 "com.example.helloandroid.TheWithParameterOtherActivity");

31 //triggered class ( full name)

String wthr = tv_weather.getText().toString();

32 // Acquire the value of weather TextView

33 intent.putExtra("weather",wthr); // Set parameter being passed to Activity

34                 startActivityForResult(intent, MYREQUESTCODE);

35 //Trigger Activity

36 }

37 });

38     }

39

40 @Override

41 protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {

42 //Triggered Activity finish return

43 super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);

44 if (requestCode == MYREQUESTCODE) {

45 // Determine whether the specified Activity end of the run

if (resultCode == RESULT_CANCELED)

46 {       }

47 // Select "Cancel" to exit the code, this case is empty

48 else if (resultCode == RESULT_OK) {

49 // Select <OK> to exit code

50 String wthr = null;

51 wthr = data.getStringExtra("weather");

// Get return value

if (wthr != null)

tv_weather.setText(wthr);

  // Update TextView display of weather content

}

}

}

@Override

public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {

getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.activity_main, menu);

return true;

}

}

The code in lines 23–28 triggers the activity with parameters in other applications. Lines 23–25 establish the trigger intent, which uses the Intent.setClassName() function. The prototype is

Intent Intent.setClassName(String packageName, String className);

The first parameter is the name of the package where the triggered activity is located, and the second parameter is the class name (required to use the full name) of the triggered activity. By using the startActivity ... function to trigger the activity, the system can accurately locate the application and activity classes.

Line 28 attaches the parameter as additional data to the intent. Intent has a series of putExtra functions to attach additional data and another series of getXXXExtra functions to extract data from the intent. Additional data can also be assembled by the Bundle class. Intent provides a putExtras function to add data and a getExtras function to get the data. putExtra uses a property-value data pairing or variable name-value data pairing to add and retrieve data. In this example, Intent.putExtra("weather", "XXX") saves the data pair consisting of the name of the weather variable and the value “XXX” as additional data for the intent.

The code line with Intent.getStringExtra("weather") gets the value of the weather variable from the attached intent data and returns the string type.

More details about these functions and the Bundle class can be found in the documentation on the Android web site. They are not discussed any further here.

In lines 33–46, you rewrite the onActivityResult function of the Activity class. This function is called when the triggered activity is closed. In line 36, you first determine which activity is closed and returned according to the request code. Then you judge whether it is returned by an OK or a Cancel click, based on the result code and the request code. Lines 40–50 get the negotiated variable values from the returned intent. Line 42 updates the interface based on the return value of the variable. In this function, if the user clicks Cancel to return, you do nothing.

  1. 2.

    Modify the code of the callee application HelloAndroid as shown in Figure 3-12:

    1. a.

      Using the method described in the section “Triggering Explicit Matching of an Activity with Parameters of Different Applications earlier in this chapter, add a layout file (in this case named param_otheract.xml), and drag and drop a RelativeLayout layout into the file.

    2. b.

      Edit this layout file by adding two TextView widgets, an EditText, and two Button widgets. Set their properties as follows:

      • Text property for the two TextView widgets: “This interface is the activity of the caller in HelloAndroid application” and “Set new weather as:”

      • ID property for the EditText: @+id/editText_NewWeather

      • Text property for the two Buttons: “Confirm Changes” and “Cancel Changes”

      • ID attribute for the two Buttons: @+id/button_Modify and @+id/button_Cancel

Then adjust their size and position.

Figure 3-12.
figure 12

New layout design of the triggered (callee) application HelloAndroid

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  1. c.

    As described in the section “Triggering Explicit Matching of an Activity with Parameters of Different Applications,” add the corresponding class (in this case, TheWithParameterOtherActivity) for the new layout file, as shown in Figure 3-13.

Figure 3-13.
figure 13

Add the corresponding class for the newly added layout file in the HelloAndroid project

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  1. d.

    Edit the class file for the newly added layout file (in this example, TheWithParameterOtherActivity.java). The content is as follows:

Line#        Source Code

1  package com.example.helloandroid;

2 import android.os.Bundle;                // Use Bundle Class

3 import android.app.Activity; // Use Activity Class

4 import android.content.Intent;           // Use Intent Class

5 import android.widget.Button;            // Use Button Class

6 import android.view.View;                // Use View Class

7 import android.view.View.OnClickListener;    // Use OnClickListener Class

8 import android.widget.EditText;              // Use  EditText Class

9  public class TheWithParameterOtherActivity extends Activity {

10 private String m_weather;

11 // Save new weather variable

12 @Override

13 protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

14 // Define onCreate method

15 super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

16 // method of call onCreate Super Class

17 setContentView(R.layout.withparam_otheract); // Set layout file

18 Intent intent = getIntent();

19 // Get Intent of triggering this Activity

20 m_weather = intent.getStringExtra("weather");

21 // Get extra data from Intent

22 final EditText et_weather = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.editText_NewWeather);

23 et_weather.setText(m_weather,null);

24 // Set initial value of "New Weather" EditText according to extra data of the Intent

25 Button btn_modify = (Button) findViewById(R.id.button_Modify);

26 btn_modify.setOnClickListener(new /*View.*/OnClickListener(){

27 // Set corresponding code of <Confirm Change>

28 public void onClick(View v) {

29 Intent intent = new Intent();

30 // Create and return the Intent of Data storage

31 String wthr = et_weather.getText().toString();

32 // Get new weather value from EditText

33 intent.putExtra("weather",wthr);

34 // Put new weather value to return Intent

35 setResult(RESULT_OK, intent);

36 // Set <Confirm> and return data

37 finish(); // Close Activity

}

});

Button btn_cancel = (Button) findViewById(R.id.button_Cancel);

btn_cancel.setOnClickListener(new /*View.*/OnClickListener(){

// Set corresponding code for <Cancel Change>

public void onClick(View v) {

setResult(RESULT_CANCELED, null);

  // Set return value for <Cancel>

finish(); // Close this Activity

}

});

}

}

This code follows the framework of an activity. It sets the activity layout in line 11 such that the layout name is the same as the layout file name created in step 1 (no extension). In lines 19–22, it first constructs an intent for the return and then adds extra data to the Intent object as the return data. In line 21, it sets the return value of the activity and the intent as a return data carrier. The prototype of the setResult function is

final void Activity.setResult(int resultCode, Intent data);

If resultCode is RESULT_OK, the user has clicked OK to return; and if it is RESULT_CANCELLED, the user has clicked Cancel to return. In this condition, the return data carrier intent can be null, which is set in line 27.

  1. 3.

    Modify AndroidManifest.xml, which is triggered by the application, with the following code:

Line #        Source Code

1  <manifest xmlns:android=" http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android "

2      package="com.example.helloandroid"

3      android:versionCode="1"

4      android:versionName="1.0" >

5

6      <uses-sdk

7          android:minSdkVersion="8"

8          android:targetSdkVersion="15" />

9

10     <application

11         android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"

12         android:label="@string/app_name"

13         android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >

14         <activity

15             android:name=".MainActivity"

16             android:label="@string/title_activity_main" >

17             <intent-filter>

18                 <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

19

20                 <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />

21             </intent-filter>

22         </activity>

23 <activity

24 android:name="TheWithParameterOtherActivity">

25 <intent-filter>

26 <action android:name="android.intent.action.DEFAULT" />

27 </intent-filter>

28 </activity>

29     </application>

30

31 </manifest>

  1. 4.

    Lines 24–29 are new. As in previous sections, you add an additional activity description and specify its class name, which is the class name of the triggered activity generated in the second step. See the section “Triggering an Explicit Match of Activities with No Parameters” for information about modifying the AndroidManifest.xml file. Unlike in that section, you add not only an activity and the documentation of its name attribute, but also the intent-filter instructions and state to accept the default actions described in the Action element and trigger this Activity class. The activity cannot be activated in the absence of the intent-filter description of the activity.

  2. 5.

    Run the callee application to register components of the activity. The modifications to AndroidManifest.xml file are not registered to the Android system until the callee application, HelloAndroid, is executed once. Thus this is an essential step to complete the registration of its included activity.

Implicit Matching of Built-In Activities

In the examples in the previous two sections, before you trigger the activity of the same application or different applications through the Activity.startActivity() function or the Activity.startActivityForResult() function, the constructor of the Intent objects explicitly specifies the class, either through the .class attribute or through the class name in a string. This way, the system can find the class to be triggered. This approach is called explicit intent matching. The next example shows how to trigger a class that is not specified. Instead, the system figures it out using an approach called implicit intent matching.

In addition, Android has a number of activities that have already been implemented, such as dialing, sending text messages, and so on. Examples in this section explain how you use can implicit matching to trigger these built-in activities. The application interface is shown in Figure 3-14.

Figure 3-14.
figure 14

The application interface when using implicit intent to trigger a built-in activity

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The user start the GuiExam application and clicks the Enter Dialing Activity button on the screen. It triggers dial-up activities that come with the system.

In this case, you modify the GuiExam project and use this application as a trigger. The implicit match triggered activity is the dial-up activity. The steps to build this example are as follows.

  1. 1.

    In the layout file (activity_main.xml) of the GuiExam application, delete the original TextView widgets, add a button, and set its ID attribute to @+id/goTODialAct and its Text property to “Enter Dialing Activity”. Adjust its size and position as shown in Figure 3-15.

Figure 3-15.
figure 15

Layout file of the application for the implicit match built-in activity

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  1. 2.

    Modify the source code file (MainActivity.java) as follows:

Line#        Source Code

1  package com.example.guiexam;

2  import android.os.Bundle;

3  import android.app.Activity;

4  import android.view.Menu;

5 import android.widget.Button;            // Use Button Class

6 import android.view.View;                // Use View Class

7 import android.view.View.OnClickListener; // Use View.OnClickListener Class

8 import android.content.Intent;           // Use Intent Class

9 import android.net.Uri;                  // Use URI Class

10 public class MainActivity extends Activity {

11     @Override

12     public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

13         super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

14         setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

15 Button btn = (Button) findViewById(R.id.goTODialAct);

16 btn.setOnClickListener(new /*View.*/OnClickListener(){

17 // Set corresponding Code for Click Activity

18 public void onClick(View v) {

19 Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_DIAL,Uri.parse("tel:13800138000"));

20 startActivity(intent); // Trigger corresponding Activity

21 }

22 });

}

23

24     @Override

25     public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {

26         getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.activity_main, menu);

27         return true;

28     }

}

The code in line 16 defines an indirect intent (that is, intent of implicit match. It is called an indirect intent because the class that needs to be triggered is not specified in the constructor of the object; the constructor only describes the function of the class that needs to be triggered to complete dialing. The constructor functions for the indirect intent are as follows:

Intent(String action)

Intent(String action, Uri uri)

These functions require the classes (activities) that can complete the specified action when they are called. The only difference between the two is that the second function also comes with data.

This example uses the second constructor, which requires the activity that can complete the dialing and extra data as a string of phone numbers. Because the application does not specify the trigger type, Android finds the class to handle this action (for example, Activity) from the registered class list and triggers the start of the event.

If multiple classes can handle the specified action, Android pops up a selection menu, and users can select which one to run.

The parameter action can use the system-predefined string. In the previous example, Intent.ACTION_DIAL is the string constant of ACTION_DIAL, which is defined by the Intent class. Some system-predefined ACTION examples are shown in Table 3-1.

Table 3-1. Some System-Predefined ACTION Constants
Full size table

The ACTION constant name is the first parameter used in the constructor of the implicit-match intent. The value of the ACTION constant, used in the AndroidManifest.xml statement of the activity that receives this action, is not used in this section, but is used in the next section. You can find more information about predefined ACTION values in the android.content.Intent help documentation.

Implicit Match that Uses a Custom Activity

The previous example used implicit matching to trigger activities that come with the Android system. In this section, you see an example of how to use an implicit match to trigger a custom activity.

The configuration of this example application is similar to the one in the section “Triggering Explicit Matching of an Activity with Parameters of Different Applications.” The triggering application is hosted in the GuiExam project, and the custom activity triggered by implicit match is in the HelloAndroid application. The interface is shown in Figure 3-16.

Figure 3-16.
figure 16figure 16

The interface of implicit match that uses a custom activity

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Figure 3-16(a) shows the interface when the GuiExam trigger application starts. When you click the Display Activity Of Implicit Intent button, the system finds qualified candidates for activities according to the requirements of the ACTION_EDIT action and displays a list of events of these candidates (b). When the user-defined HelloAndroid application is selected, the activity that can receive the ACTION_EDIT action as claimed in the intent-filter in HelloAndroid application is displayed (c). When you click the Close Activity button, the application returns to the original GuiExam activity interface (d).

Like the previous ones, this example is based on modifying the GuiExam project. The steps are as follows:

  1. 1.

    Edit the main layout file (activity_main.xml). Delete the original TextView widgets, and then add a TextView and a button. Set the TextView’s Text property to “This application is the Activity triggered by Caller using Implicit Intent”. Set the button’s Text property to “Display Activity triggered by Implicit Intent” and its ID attribute to @+id/goToIndirectAct, as shown in Figure 3-17.

Figure 3-17.
figure 17

The main layout design for the GuiExam trigger application

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  1. 2.

    Edit MainActivity.java as follows:

Line#        Source Code

1  package com.example.guiexam;

2  import android.os.Bundle;

3  import android.app.Activity;

4  import android.view.Menu;

5 import android.widget.Button;            // Use Button Class

6 import android.view.View; // Use View class

7 import android.view.View.OnClickListener; // Use View.OnClickListener class

8 import android.content.Intent;           // Use Intent Class

9  public class MainActivity extends Activity {

10     @Override

11     public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

12         super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

13         setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

14 Button btn = (Button) findViewById(R.id.goToIndirectAct);

15 btn.setOnClickListener(new /*View.*/OnClickListener(){

16 // Set respond Code for Button Click event

17 public void onClick(View v) {

18 Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_EDIT);

19 //Construct implicit Inent

20 startActivity(intent); // Trigger Activity

21 }

});

22     }

23

24     @Override

25     public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {

26         getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.activity_main, menu);

27         return true;

}

}

The code in lines 16 and 17 defines the implicit intent and triggers the corresponding activity, which is basically the same as the earlier code that triggers implicit activity, but here it uses the constructor function of the intent that has no data.

  1. 3.

    Modify the HelloAndroid application that includes a custom activity with the corresponding implicit intent:

  2. a.

    Based on the method described in the section “Triggering an Explicit Match of Activities with No Parameters,” earlier in this chapter, add a layout file (implicit_act.xml) to the project and drag and drop a RelativeLayout layout into the file.

  3. b.

    Edit the layout file, and add TextView, ImageView, and Button widgets. Set the attributes as follows:

    • Text property of the TextView: “This interface is an Activity of the HelloAndroid, which is responsible for action triggered by the ACTION_EDIT”

    • ImageView: Set up exactly as in the section “Using ImageView” in Chapter 2.

    • Text property of the Button: “Close Activity”

    • ID property of the Button: @+id/closeActivity.

Then adjust their respective size and position, as shown in Figure 3-18.

Figure 3-18.
figure 18

Layout file for the custom activity of the corresponding implicit intent

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  1. 4.

    Similar to the process described in the section of this chapter “Triggering an Explicit Match of Activities with No Parameters,” add the corresponding class to the project for the new layout file (TheActivityToImplicitIntent), as shown in Figure 3-19.

Figure 3-19.
figure 19

New class for the custom activity of the corresponding implicit intent

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  1. 5.

    Edit the class file for the newly added layout file (TheActivityToImplicitIntent.java), which reads as follows:

Line#        Source Code

1  package com.example.helloandroid;

2 import android.os.Bundle;

3 import android.app.Activity;

4 import android.widget.Button;           // Use Button Class

5 import android.view.View;               // Use View class

6 import android.view.View.OnClickListener; // Use View.OnClickListener class

7  public class TheActivityToImplicitIntent extends Activity {

8 @Override

9 public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

10 super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

11 setContentView(R.layout.implicit_act);

12 Button btn = (Button) findViewById(R.id.closeActivity);

13 btn.setOnClickListener(new /*View.*/OnClickListener(){

14 // Set response code for <Close Activity> Click

15 public void onClick(View v) {

16 finish();

17 }

18 });

19 }

}

  1. 6.

    Modify the AndroidManifest.xml file of the HelloAndroid custom application containing the corresponding implicit intent, as follows:

Line#        Source Code

1  <manifest xmlns:android=" http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android "

2

3      package="com.example.helloandroid"

4

5      android:versionCode="1"

6

7      android:versionName="1.0" >

8

9      <uses-sdk

10         android:minSdkVersion="8"

11         android:targetSdkVersion="15" />

12

13     <application

14         android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"

15         android:label="@string/app_name"

16         android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >

17         <activity

18             android:name=".MainActivity"

19             android:label="@string/title_activity_main" >

20             <intent-filter>

21                 <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

22

23                 <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />

24             </intent-filter>

25         </activity>

26 <activity

27 android:name="TheActivityToImplicitIntent">

28 <intent-filter>

29 <action android:name="android.intent.action.DEFAULT" />

30 <action android:name="android.intent.action.EDIT" />

31 <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />

32 </intent-filter>

33 </activity>

</application>

</manifest>

The code in lines 24–32 (in bold) gives the activity information for receiving the implicit intent.  Line 26 specifies that you can receive an android.intent.action.EDIT action. This value corresponds to the constant value of the ACTION parameter Intent.ACTION_EDIT of the trigger’s intent constructor function (the MainActivity class of GuiExam ). This is a predetermined contact signal between the trigger and the callee. Line 27 further specifies that the default data type can also be received.

  1. 7.

    Run the application HelloAndroid, which now contains a custom activity for the corresponding implicit intent and registers its AndroidManifest.xml file in the system.

So far, three chapters have covered Android interface design. The simple GuiExam application has demonstrated the state transition of an activity, the Context class, intents, and the relationship between applications and activities. You also learned how to use a layout as an interface and how the button, event, and inner event listener work. Examples with multiple activities introduced the explicit and implicit trigger mechanisms for activities. You saw an example of an application with parameters triggered by an activity in a different application, and you now understand the exchange mechanism for the activity’s parameters.

The application interface discussed so far is basically similar to a dialog interface. The drawback of this mode is that it is difficult to obtain accurate touchscreen input, making it difficult to display accurate images based on the input interface. The next chapter, which covers the last part of Android interface design, introduces the view-based interaction style interface. In this interface, you can enter information with accurate touchscreen input and display detailed images, as required by many game applications.