Regular update, May 2nd

Some notes from Application Fundamentals

activities/intents

Activity.setContentView()

ContentResolver can talk to any ContentProvider

activities, services, and broadcast receivers are activated by asynchronous messages (intents)

Context.startActivity()

Activity.startActivityForResult() (we expect some result back, with onActivityResult())

intents are passed to activities by Android with onNewIntent()

starting service

Context.startService() (service's onStart() gets the intent)

Context.bindService() (to establish an ongoing connection, service's onBind() gets the intent)

initiating a broadcast

Context.sendBroadcast()

Context.sendOrderedBroadcast()

Context.sendStickyBroadcast()

shutting down components

no need to shutdown ContentProvider or BroadcastReceiver

shut down activity with finish(), or use finishActivity() to shut down the one it created

shut down service with stopSelf() method, or by calling Context.stopService()

the manifest file

 declaring components

<activity>

  <service>

  <receiver> (BroadcastReceiver can be dynamically registered in code with Context.registerReceiver())

  <provicer>

  

 ex of activity declaration

          <activity android:name="com.example.project.FreneticActivity"

                  android:icon="@drawable/small_pic.png"

                  android:label="@string/freneticLabel" 

                  . . .  >

 ex of intent-filters declaration (inbetween a activity tag)

            <intent-filter . . . > (entry point for the app)

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

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

            </intent-filter>

            <intent-filter . . . >

                <action android:name="com.example.project.BOUNCE" />

                <data android:mimeType="image/jpeg" />

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

            </intent-filter>

principal Intent flags

FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK 

FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP 

FLAG_ACTIVITY_RESET_TASK_IF_NEEDED 

FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP

principal <activity> attributes

taskAffinity 

launchMode 

allowTaskReparenting 

clearTaskOnLaunch 

alwaysRetainTaskState 

finishOnTaskLaunch

The affinity comes into play in two circumstances: When the Intent object that launches an activity contains the FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK flag, and when an activity has its allowTaskReparenting attribute set to "true".

Four launch modes in <activity> element's launchMode attribute:

 standard (the default mode, can appear anywhere in a stack) 

 singleTop can appear anywhere in a stack

 singleTask will always be the root activity of the task

 singleInstance (the only activity in its task)

Since I don't feel really well, I'll call it a day. By the way.. blogger editor is really f*cked. Next time I'll use HTML editing mode, I can't stand formatting issues it bugs me with.