How to add shortcut to Home screen in Android programmatically

May 27, 2014 Denis Kutlubaev 3 Comments

I improved a little bit a solution that was found in StackOverflow. Now program saves in preferences whether a shortcut was already added and doesn’t add it in new launches of an app if user deleted it. This also saves a little bit time, since the code to add an existing shortcut doesn’t run anymore.

final static public String PREFS_NAME = "PREFS_NAME";
final static private String PREF_KEY_SHORTCUT_ADDED = "PREF_KEY_SHORTCUT_ADDED";


// Creates shortcut on Android widget screen
private void createShortcutIcon(){

    // Checking if ShortCut was already added
    SharedPreferences sharedPreferences = getPreferences(MODE_PRIVATE);
    boolean shortCutWasAlreadyAdded = sharedPreferences.getBoolean(PREF_KEY_SHORTCUT_ADDED, false);
    if (shortCutWasAlreadyAdded) return;

    Intent shortcutIntent = new Intent(getApplicationContext(), IntroActivity.class);
    shortcutIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
    shortcutIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);

    Intent addIntent = new Intent();
    addIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SHORTCUT_INTENT, shortcutIntent);
    addIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SHORTCUT_NAME, "YourAppName");
    addIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SHORTCUT_ICON_RESOURCE, Intent.ShortcutIconResource.fromContext(getApplicationContext(), R.drawable.ic_launcher));
    addIntent.setAction("com.android.launcher.action.INSTALL_SHORTCUT");
    getApplicationContext().sendBroadcast(addIntent);

    // Remembering that ShortCut was already added
    SharedPreferences.Editor editor = sharedPreferences.edit();
    editor.putBoolean(PREF_KEY_SHORTCUT_ADDED, true);
    editor.commit();
}

final static public String PREFS_NAME = "PREFS_NAME";

final static private String PREF_KEY_SHORTCUT_ADDED = "PREF_KEY_SHORTCUT_ADDED";

// Creates shortcut on Android widget screen

private void createShortcutIcon(){

// Checking if ShortCut was already added

SharedPreferences sharedPreferences = getPreferences(MODE_PRIVATE);

boolean shortCutWasAlreadyAdded = sharedPreferences.getBoolean(PREF_KEY_SHORTCUT_ADDED, false);

if (shortCutWasAlreadyAdded) return;

Intent shortcutIntent = new Intent(getApplicationContext(), IntroActivity.class);

shortcutIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);

shortcutIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);

Intent addIntent = new Intent();

addIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SHORTCUT_INTENT, shortcutIntent);

addIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SHORTCUT_NAME, "YourAppName");

addIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SHORTCUT_ICON_RESOURCE, Intent.ShortcutIconResource.fromContext(getApplicationContext(), R.drawable.ic_launcher));

addIntent.setAction("com.android.launcher.action.INSTALL_SHORTCUT");

getApplicationContext().sendBroadcast(addIntent);

// Remembering that ShortCut was already added

SharedPreferences.Editor editor = sharedPreferences.edit();

editor.putBoolean(PREF_KEY_SHORTCUT_ADDED, true);

editor.commit();

}

In Android Manifest:

<uses-permission android:name="com.android.launcher.permission.INSTALL_SHORTCUT" />

1	<uses-permission android:name="com.android.launcher.permission.INSTALL_SHORTCUT" />

Android

How to create a screenshot on Android

May 27, 2014 Denis Kutlubaev Leave a comment

Press and hold the Volume Down and Power buttons at the same time.

Android

Open-Source Expandable Selection Tree for Android

May 27, 2014 Denis Kutlubaev Leave a comment

Today I have published a new open source project on GitHub, called DKExpandableSelectionTree. It is a better expandable list view for Android that allows user to select multiple items from a tree of objects. You can clear all selections, you can select and deselect multiple items by selecting a whole group. It also displays a number of selected items inside a group in parentheses after the name of a group.

This is how it will look in a sample project, when you clone the repository and run it:

This is how it looks in my project:

iOS

New cool custom Activity Indicator for iOS

May 26, 2014 Denis Kutlubaev Leave a comment

Recently I have created a new open-source project of an activity indicator for iOS, called DKProgressHUD.

Today I merged a contribution from Edan Lichtenstein, which significantly improves it. This is how it looks now on iPhone:

DKProgressHUD on GitHub

Available via Cocoapods:

pod DKProgressHUD

1	pod DKProgressHUD

Android, iOS

Mobile App Release Roadmap / Checklist

May 16, 2014 Denis Kutlubaev Leave a comment

Mobile App Release Checklist

1. Install new version above the old one.

2. Install your app to different devices, as many as you can (iPad, iPhone, iPhone 5, iPhone 3GS, Galaxy S4, Google Nexus 5, Nexus 3, very small screen size Android devices, etc.) Particularly, for Android and for iPad.

3. Check different geo locations, for example, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Ufa, etc., not the only one, where you live and develop the app.

4. Check that your app doesn’t load data to Documents folder, that is backed up in iCloud. All files should be marked as not backed up, if they can be downloaded again.

5. Check that your app doesn’t have iPad or iPhone words in the name.

6. Check, how data absence is handled when your app fails to load data from server. Particularly, on Android.

7. Check, how bad answers are handled, like HTML instead of JSON. Particularly, on Android.

8. Check, how bad objects in JSON are handled (like null objects or strings instead of objects, etc.). Particularly, on Android.

9. If you use In-App Purchases, check that they are activated for a new version in iTunes Connect.

10. If you use In-App Purchases, check that your app has in-apps if they are activated.

11. Check, how absence of internet is handled.

12. Check, how different operations with arrays and dictionaries are handled.

I am tired of being unsuccessful while releasing new versions of the apps to the AppStore and created a checklist. Always, I forget something to check, when I release an update. Hope, this will save your time, when you publish your app versions. Using the help of testers doesn’t improve final results in these cases, so you have to check all this shit yourself.

All these reasons in my developer experience created some shit in my life. And all these points have their own graves of my time. Check them all, when you decide to release your app version.

Alwawee

Monthly Archives: May 2014

How to add shortcut to Home screen in Android programmatically

How to create a screenshot on Android

Open-Source Expandable Selection Tree for Android

New cool custom Activity Indicator for iOS

Mobile App Release Roadmap / Checklist

iOS Development