How to check if activity is in foreground or in vi

Question

I have a splash screen on a timer. My problem is that before I finish() my activity I need to check that the next activity has started because a system dialogue box pops-up and I only want to finish(); once the user has selected an option from the dialogue box?

I know that there are many questions on how to see if your activity is in the foreground but I do not know if this allows for dialogue boxes on top of the activity too.

Here is the problem, the red is my activity which is in the background while the dialogue is in the foreground:

EDIT: I have tried just not using finish() but then my activity can be gone back to in the stack of applications which I am trying to avoid.

Answer 1

If targeting API level 14 or above, one can use android.app.Application.ActivityLifecycleCallbacks

public class MyApplication extends Application implements ActivityLifecycleCallbacks {
    private static boolean isInterestingActivityVisible;

    @Override
    public void onCreate() {
        super.onCreate();

        // Register to be notified of activity state changes
        registerActivityLifecycleCallbacks(this);
        ....
    }

    public boolean isInterestingActivityVisible() {
        return isInterestingActivityVisible;
    }

    @Override
    public void onActivityResumed(Activity activity) {
        if (activity instanceof MyInterestingActivity) {
             isInterestingActivityVisible = true;
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void onActivityStopped(Activity activity) {
        if (activity instanceof MyInterestingActivity) {
             isInterestingActivityVisible = false;
        }
    }

    // Other state change callback stubs
    ....
}

Answer 2

Use the time gap between pause and resume from background to determine whether it is awake from background

In Custom Application

private static boolean isInBackground;
private static boolean isAwakeFromBackground;
private static final int backgroundAllowance = 10000;

public static void activityPaused() {
    isInBackground = true;
    final Handler handler = new Handler();
    handler.postDelayed(new Runnable() {
        @Override
        public void run() {
            if (isInBackground) {
                isAwakeFromBackground = true;
            }
        }
    }, backgroundAllowance);
    Log.v("activity status", "activityPaused");
}

public static void activityResumed() {
    isInBackground = false;
    if(isAwakeFromBackground){
        // do something when awake from background
        Log.v("activity status", "isAwakeFromBackground");
    }
    isAwakeFromBackground = false;
    Log.v("activity status", "activityResumed");
}

In BaseActivity Class

@Override
protected void onResume() {
  super.onResume();
  MyApplication.activityResumed();
}

@Override
protected void onPause() {
  super.onPause();
  MyApplication.activityPaused();
}

Answer 3

Two possible solutions :

1) Activity LifeCycle Callbacks

Use an Application that implements ActivityLifecycleCallbacks and use it to track Activities lifecycle events in you application. Note that ActivityLifecycleCallbacks are for Android api >= 14. For previous Android api, you'll need to implement it by yourself inside all of your activities ;-)

Use Application when you need to share / store states accross activities.

2) Check for running process informations

You can check the status of a running process with this class RunningAppProcessInfo

Fetch the running process list with ActivityManager.getRunningAppProcesses() and filter the result list to check for the desired RunningAppProcessInfo and check its "importance"

Answer 4

This can achieve this by a efficient way by using Application.ActivityLifecycleCallbacks

For example lets take Activity class name as ProfileActivity lets find whether its is in foreground or background

first we need to create our application class by extending Application Class

which implements

Application.ActivityLifecycleCallbacks

Lets be my Application class as follows

Application class

public class AppController extends Application implements Application.ActivityLifecycleCallbacks {


private boolean activityInForeground;

@Override
public void onCreate() {
    super.onCreate();

//register ActivityLifecycleCallbacks  

    registerActivityLifecycleCallbacks(this);

}



public static boolean isActivityVisible() {
    return activityVisible;
}

public static void activityResumed() {
    activityVisible = true;
}

public static void activityPaused() {
    activityVisible = false;
}

private static boolean activityVisible;

@Override
public void onActivityCreated(Activity activity, Bundle savedInstanceState) {

}

@Override
public void onActivityStarted(Activity activity) {

}

@Override
public void onActivityResumed(Activity activity) {
    //Here you can add all Activity class you need to check whether its on screen or not

    activityInForeground = activity instanceof ProfileActivity;
}

@Override
public void onActivityPaused(Activity activity) {

}

@Override
public void onActivityStopped(Activity activity) {

}

@Override
public void onActivitySaveInstanceState(Activity activity, Bundle outState) {

}

@Override
public void onActivityDestroyed(Activity activity) {

}

public boolean isActivityInForeground() {
    return activityInForeground;
}
}

in the above class there is a override methord onActivityResumed of ActivityLifecycleCallbacks

 @Override
public void onActivityResumed(Activity activity) {
    //Here you can add all Activity class you need to check whether its on screen or not

    activityInForeground = activity instanceof ProfileActivity;
}

where all activity instance which is currently displayed on screen can be found, just check whether Your Activity is on Screen or not by the above method.

Register your Application class in manifest.xml

<application
    android:name=".AppController" />

To check weather Activity is Foreground or background as per the above solution call the following method on places you need to check

AppController applicationControl = (AppController) getApplicationContext();
    if(applicationControl.isActivityInForeground()){
     Log.d("TAG","Activity is in foreground")
    }
    else
    {
      Log.d("TAG","Activity is in background")
    }

Answer 5

If you want to know if any activity of your app is visible on the screen, you can do something like this:

public class MyAppActivityCallbacks implements Application.ActivityLifecycleCallbacks {
private Set<Class<Activity>> visibleActivities = new HashSet<>();

@Override
public void onActivityResumed(Activity activity) {
    visibleActivities.add((Class<Activity>) activity.getClass());
}

@Override
public void onActivityStopped(Activity activity) {
     visibleActivities.remove(activity.getClass());
}

public boolean isAnyActivityVisible() {
    return !visibleActivities.isEmpty();
}

@Override
public void onActivityCreated(Activity activity, Bundle savedInstanceState) {}

@Override
public void onActivityStarted(Activity activity) {}

@Override
public void onActivityPaused(Activity activity) {}

@Override
public void onActivityDestroyed(Activity activity) {}

@Override
public void onActivitySaveInstanceState(Activity activity, Bundle outState) {}}

Just create a singleton of this class and set it in your Application instance like below:

class App extends Application{
     @Override
     public void onCreate() {
         registerActivityLifecycleCallbacks(myAppActivityCallbacks);
     }
}

Then you can use isAnyActivityVisible() method of your MyAppActivityCallbacks instance everywhere!

Answer 6

This is what is recommended as the right solution:

The right solution (credits go to Dan, CommonsWare and NeTeInStEiN) Track visibility of your application by yourself using Activity.onPause, Activity.onResume methods. Store "visibility" status in some other class. Good choices are your own implementation of the Application or a Service (there are also a few variations of this solution if you'd like to check activity visibility from the service).

Example Implement custom Application class (note the isActivityVisible() static method):

public class MyApplication extends Application {

  public static boolean isActivityVisible() {
    return activityVisible;
  }  

  public static void activityResumed() {
    activityVisible = true;
  }

  public static void activityPaused() {
    activityVisible = false;
  }

  private static boolean activityVisible;
}

Register your application class in AndroidManifest.xml:

<application
    android:name="your.app.package.MyApplication"
    android:icon="@drawable/icon"
    android:label="@string/app_name" >

Add onPause and onResume to every Activity in the project (you may create a common ancestor for your Activities if you'd like to, but if your activity is already extended from MapActivity/ListActivity etc. you still need to write the following by hand):

@Override
protected void onResume() {
  super.onResume();
  MyApplication.activityResumed();
}

@Override
protected void onPause() {
  super.onPause();
  MyApplication.activityPaused();
}

In your finish() method, you want to use isActivityVisible() to check if the activity is visible or not. There you can also check if the user has selected an option or not. Continue when both conditions are met.

The source also mentions two wrong solutions...so avoid doing that.

Source: stackoverflow