I have tried the great Google example to sync contact from a webservice and that work fine.
This is called the SampleSyncAdapter and really worth it: http://developer.android.com/resources/samples/SampleSyncAdapter/index.html
I succed everything, but I cannot found in the example nor in the documentation a way to add a category that would link to a custom activity, exactly like the screenshot below:
(I have only the sync account option with the checkbox)
So, my question is: how can I add the account settings category?
herschel's answer provides a link to a generic solution. Here's how to modify the SampleSyncAdapter source to add custom preferences (Android 2.3.4) that look like the screenshot above:
Remember that the account manager is running as a system process, so the phone will crash if there's an unhandled exception in your code, a missing manifest entry, or an error in your xml.
Create an account_preferences.xml
resource file.
- The actual preference screen's
android:key
value must be specified as "account_settings"
.
- If you want to put your custom preferences in a category, you need to
close the
PreferenceCategory
tag when you define it; if you put the PreferenceScreen
inside the category the phone will crash when you click on the preference.
XML:
<PreferenceScreen xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<PreferenceCategory android:title="General Settings" />
<PreferenceScreen android:key="account_settings"
android:title="Account Settings"
android:summary="Sync frequency, notifications, etc.">
<intent android:action="com.example.android.samplesync.ACCOUNT_SETUP"
android:targetPackage="com.example.android.samplesync"
android:targetClass="com.example.android.samplesync.AccountPreferences" />
</PreferenceScreen>
</PreferenceScreen>
Add a reference to account_preferences.xml
at the end of authenticator.xml
:
<account-authenticator xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:accountType="com.example.android.samplesync" android:label="@string/label"
android:icon="@drawable/icon" android:smallIcon="@drawable/icon"
android:accountPreferences="@xml/account_preferences" />
Create a preference activity and add it to the manifest. I used a simplified version of the sample code from the answer to How do we control an Android sync adapter preference?.
a. Add the activity to the manifest:
<activity android:label="Account Preferences" android:name=".AccountPreferences"
android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Dialog" android:excludeFromRecents="true" />
b. Here's the most trivial AccountPreferences.java
:
public class AccountPreferences extends PreferenceActivity {
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) {
super.onCreate(icicle);
addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.preferences_resources);
}
}
c. Here's preferences_resources.xml
with hard-coded strings:
<PreferenceScreen xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<PreferenceCategory android:title="Privacy preferences"/>
<CheckBoxPreference android:key="privacy_contacts" android:defaultValue="true"
android:summary="Keep contacts private" android:title="Contacts"/>
<PreferenceCategory android:title="Outgoing"/>
<CheckBoxPreference android:key="allow_mail" android:defaultValue="true"
android:summary="Allow email" android:title="Email"/>
</PreferenceScreen>
That's it. Install your code, open the accounts, and select your SampleSyncAdapter account (user1). Select Account Settings and you see the settings activity.
Custom sync preferences http://i49.tinypic.com/5d6ve0.jpg