testing...just had an Internet outage here

Hello!

howdy, KEvin!

er, Kevin

I was the one who asked about different hours

so this is a good time

if you'd like, I can wait until you go find a bus :-)

Lots of questions

:)

fire off your first one, then we'll give David a shot

Hi Mark

(btw, howdy, David!)

I have 1 big one but I'll start off with a smaller one: How do you capture keys when asleep

i.e. when the display is dark

You don't

I have a music program that I would like to use the camera button to pause/resume the music

then the device is not asleep

otherwise, it can't be playing music

Right. I have a service that is running but it doesn't seem to receive broadcasts

presumably, you are holding a WakeLock, one way or another

yes

the only WakeLock level that supports keyboard events is a FULL_WAKE_LOCK

(btw, howdy, Ales!)

Hello everyone :)

so, it may be you cannot receive ACTION_CAMERA_BUTTON without a FULL_WAKE_LOCK

Ahh...But that will keep the screen on too, right?

yes

I don't know of a way around that

So it doesn't sound doable

it may be that the WakeLock docs are just too terse

so you might try something stronger than PARTIAL_WAKE_LOCK but less than FULL_WAKE_LOCK and see if you start getting ACTION_CAMERA_BUTTON broadcasts

otherwise, I think you may be stuck

The other question I have (and you can postpone it for others if you want) is about lifescyles. I have a series of activities that get started from each other.

wait, whoa

let's give everyone else a shot, then we'll swing back to you

Sure

David: do you have a question?

It is said that android.provider.Calendar is in @hide. How can I get the file and how to make unhide?

You can't unhide it

And you definitely do not want to be using it

Please use the Google Calendar GData APIs for manipulating the user's Google Calendar

I see.

Okay.

Ales: do you have a question?

Kevin please go ahead with your question.

cool by me -- Kevin: your turn again

So if I have Activity A, B, C, D

and I go home

and then press the home button to bring up the activity list and go back to my activity, I don't always go to the right one

I've been messing with the single_top type settings

Haven't been able to get it right

what do you consider to be "the right one" and what is happening when you use the recent activities list

?

I see my program but it now will take me back to the main activity instead of the top one

OK

I want the onNewIntent method to be called so that I do get a new activity created each time

by "top one", you mean the one that was last used by the user?

Yes

so, if you have A->B->C->D, and user presses HOME, and user clicks on you in the recent activities list, instead of going back to D, you are getting a *new* copy of A?

Well, it's a bit more complicated as I've changed a lot of settings to figure it out

I've got A as singleTask

and the last one as singleTop

I don't want my music program to be recreated while it is playing

which activity (A, B, C, or D) is the music program?

D

D is the music player activity

They can go through the albums, artists etc before getting there

OK

have you looked in DDMS to see what Intent is being sent when you tap on your icon in the recent activities list?

The B & C are normal but if I'm on C, when I return I want to be on C and not A

(more accurately, looked in LogCat?)

howdy, NetApex!

I've had breakpoints on the onNewIntent and OnCreate of each activity

Good afternoon

Kevin: check LogCat and figure out what Intent is being used when you tap on the icon in the recent activities list

your breakpoints will only tell you what responded

you also need to figure out what Android is asking for

I haven't played with recent activities much

Going from a notification works great, just the recent doesn't work right

which presumably means the recent is using a different Intent

Seems like it

you need to figure out what that is, as that should help you figure out how best to respond

unfortunately, I don't have a ton of concrete advice for you, beyond that

Ok. Thanks

NetApex: do you have a question, since you haven't had a shot yet

?

Nope, just along for the ride at the moment

OK

David: do you have a question?

Mark, I want to Google Calendar source code to make an Android calendar. Is it the right way to replace android.provider.Calendar class with Google Calendar GData APIs?

The android.provider.Calendar class is not part of the SDK

It might not even be part of the Android installation on any given device

I know, but source code uses it.

So?

Can I replace with GData APIs?

you can manipulate the user's Google Calendar with GData APIs

OK

the changes you put out there will eventually sync to their Calendar app, if they have one and if they have configured it for such synchronization

it also will work if they do not use the native Calendar app (e.g., they use some other Google Calendar app)

Thanks

Ales: do you have a question?

I have similar question as Kevin. I am building news app and have 5 activities (news, weather, traffic,..). I can get from each activity to any of other 4.

I am not sure that a flag will be the right answer in this case

hold on

actually, it looks like FLAG_ACTIVITY_REORDER_TO_FRONT will be what you want

"For example, consider a task consisting of four activities: A, B, C, D. If D calls startActivity() with an Intent that resolves to the component of activity B, then B will be brought to the front of the history stack, with this resulting order: A, C, D, B."

I just don't want activities to create more and more instances of themself

Because phone crashes

makes sense, though the phone should not crash

Android will clean up the activities

Kevin: do you have another question?

Yes. If you have an activity that starts a service, then the user returns from that activity, the service will no longer run right?

that depends

when you say "starts a service" are you using bindService() or startService()?

bindService

and then in onDestroy it calls unbind

then the service will run until the matching unbindService(), unless some other activity has bound to the service, or unless something else called startService()

so, if there's nothing else working with your service, it will shut down shortly after your activity is destroyed, given your description above

I ended up creating a service in activity A that holds on to a copy of the other service to keep it around. Very ugly

gack

that does not sound good

I have a download service that needs to keep running even if the activity that started it closes

then that should be used with startService(), not bindService()

Oh, so then can I get away with not calling stopService?

Just let it finish?

ideally, the download service would be an IntentService

this solves two problems:

1. it automatically does your work on a background thread

2. it automatically shuts down when the work is done

Good idea. I just started using the IntentService. I thought I needed a regular one

if you are concerned about the device going to sleep, you might consider making it a WakefulIntentService, as seen in the Advanced Android book

Right. I copied that code. :)

a download-even-if-user-exits scenario is perfect for an IntentService

in the next round of updates to my books, I plan on trying to drive that point home a bit better :-)

Cool

And to give some examples on using parcels in creative ways I hope!

well, I'll try

I keep looking at it thinking what an awesome idea it is, but I go brain dead when it comes to using it :)

particularly nowadays, parcels have fallen back to mostly being Android library projects with a naming convention

you'd create one whenever you want to ship a reusable component that needs stuff like resources that don't fit in a pure JAR

David: do you have another question?

If I start service in activity A with bindService(new Intent(this, MyService.class), onService, BIND_AUTO_CREATE), how can I get access to the same service in activity B (users goes from A to B after service binds to A)?

NO

Ales: you bind to it, same as you did with A

And that will be the same service right?

assuming you have not unbound from it in A, yes

Or restarted if stopped

yes

ok perfect

One suggestion if I may

sure

Please try to further explain custom adapters, views and lists in your book

Chapter "A Dynamic Presentation"

there's a whole chapter on tailoring adapters -- Fancy ListViews -- in The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development

I copied all the code and kinda make things work but did not actually understood what I was doing

I have rewritten parts of that chapter in the most recent update to that book, which was released this past Friday

perhaps the newer changes will help you

I hope so

any final questions from anyone?

For example

super(DynamicDemo.this, R.layout.row, items);

View row=inflater.inflate(R.layout.row, parent, false);

there's a whole section on view inflation

with respect to the first line, that's actually covered better in the rewrite, I think

Must adapter and View have the same resource

not really

Hmm

read the revised chapter

Ok will do. Thanks for your help

OK, that's it for today's chat

next one is next Tuesday, same time

have a pleasant day, all!

see you next week

bye

See you