Android: How can I get the current foreground acti

Question

Is there a native android way to get a reference to the currently running Activity from a service?

I have a service running on the background, and I would like to update my current Activity when an event occurs (in the service). Is there a easy way to do that (like the one I suggested above)?

Answer 1

Here is my answer that works just fine...

You should be able to get current Activity in this way... If you structure your app with a few Activities with many fragments and you want to keep track of what is your current Activity, it would take a lot of work though. My senario was I do have one Activity with multiple Fragments. So I can keep track of Current Activity through Application Object, which can store all of the current state of Global variables.

Here is a way. When you start your Activity, you store that Activity by Application.setCurrentActivity(getIntent()); This Application will store it. On your service class, you can simply do like Intent currentIntent = Application.getCurrentActivity(); getApplication().startActivity(currentIntent);

Answer 2

Is there a native android way to get a reference to the currently running Activity from a service?

You may not own the "currently running Activity".

I have a service running on the background, and I would like to update my current Activity when an event occurs (in the service). Is there a easy way to do that (like the one I suggested above)?

1. Send a broadcast Intent to the activity -- here is a sample project demonstrating this pattern
2. Have the activity supply a PendingIntent (e.g., via createPendingResult()) that the service invokes
3. Have the activity register a callback or listener object with the service via bindService(), and have the service call an event method on that callback/listener object
4. Send an ordered broadcast Intent to the activity, with a low-priority BroadcastReceiver as backup (to raise a Notification if the activity is not on-screen) -- here is a blog post with more on this pattern

Answer 3

Warning: Google Play violation

Google has threatened to remove apps from the Play Store if they use accessibility services for non-accessibility purposes. However, this is reportedly being reconsidered.

---

Use an AccessibilityService

• You can detect the currently active window by using an AccessibilityService.
• In the onAccessibilityEvent callback, check for the TYPE_WINDOW_STATE_CHANGED event type to determine when the current window changes.
• Check if the window is an activity by calling PackageManager.getActivityInfo().

Benefits

• Tested and working in Android 2.2 (API 8) through Android 7.1 (API 25).
• Doesn't require polling.
• Doesn't require the GET_TASKS permission.

Disadvantages

• Each user must enable the service in Android's accessibility settings.
• The service is always running.
• When a user tries to enable the AccessibilityService, they can't press the OK button if an app has placed an overlay on the screen. Some apps that do this are Velis Auto Brightness and Lux. This can be confusing because the user might not know why they can't press the button or how to work around it.
• The AccessibilityService won't know the current activity until the first change of activity.

Example

Service

public class WindowChangeDetectingService extends AccessibilityService {

    @Override
    protected void onServiceConnected() {
        super.onServiceConnected();

        //Configure these here for compatibility with API 13 and below.
        AccessibilityServiceInfo config = new AccessibilityServiceInfo();
        config.eventTypes = AccessibilityEvent.TYPE_WINDOW_STATE_CHANGED;
        config.feedbackType = AccessibilityServiceInfo.FEEDBACK_GENERIC;

        if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= 16)
            //Just in case this helps
            config.flags = AccessibilityServiceInfo.FLAG_INCLUDE_NOT_IMPORTANT_VIEWS;

        setServiceInfo(config);
    }

    @Override
    public void onAccessibilityEvent(AccessibilityEvent event) {
        if (event.getEventType() == AccessibilityEvent.TYPE_WINDOW_STATE_CHANGED) {
            if (event.getPackageName() != null && event.getClassName() != null) {
                ComponentName componentName = new ComponentName(
                    event.getPackageName().toString(),
                    event.getClassName().toString()
                );

                ActivityInfo activityInfo = tryGetActivity(componentName);
                boolean isActivity = activityInfo != null;
                if (isActivity)
                    Log.i("CurrentActivity", componentName.flattenToShortString());
            }
        }
    }

    private ActivityInfo tryGetActivity(ComponentName componentName) {
        try {
            return getPackageManager().getActivityInfo(componentName, 0);
        } catch (PackageManager.NameNotFoundException e) {
            return null;
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void onInterrupt() {}
}

AndroidManifest.xml

Merge this into your manifest:

<application>
    <service
        android:label="@string/accessibility_service_name"
        android:name=".WindowChangeDetectingService"
        android:permission="android.permission.BIND_ACCESSIBILITY_SERVICE">
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.accessibilityservice.AccessibilityService"/>
        </intent-filter>
        <meta-data
            android:name="android.accessibilityservice"
            android:resource="@xml/accessibilityservice"/>
    </service>
</application>

Service Info

Put this in res/xml/accessibilityservice.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- These options MUST be specified here in order for the events to be received on first
 start in Android 4.1.1 -->
<accessibility-service
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:accessibilityEventTypes="typeWindowStateChanged"
    android:accessibilityFeedbackType="feedbackGeneric"
    android:accessibilityFlags="flagIncludeNotImportantViews"
    android:description="@string/accessibility_service_description"
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    tools:ignore="UnusedAttribute"/>

Enabling the Service

Each user of the app will need to explicitly enable the AccessibilityService in order for it to be used. See this StackOverflow answer for how to do this.

Note that the user won't be able to press the OK button when trying to enable the accessibility service if an app has placed an overlay on the screen, such as Velis Auto Brightness or Lux.

Answer 4

I could not find a solution that our team would be happy with so we rolled our own. We use ActivityLifecycleCallbacks to keep track of current activity and then expose it through a service:

public interface ContextProvider {
    Context getActivityContext();
}

public class MyApplication extends Application implements ContextProvider {
    private Activity currentActivity;

    @Override
    public Context getActivityContext() {
         return currentActivity;
    }

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

        registerActivityLifecycleCallbacks(new ActivityLifecycleCallbacks() {
            @Override
            public void onActivityCreated(Activity activity, Bundle savedInstanceState) {
                MyApplication.this.currentActivity = activity;
            }

            @Override
            public void onActivityStarted(Activity activity) {
                MyApplication.this.currentActivity = activity;
            }

            @Override
            public void onActivityResumed(Activity activity) {
                MyApplication.this.currentActivity = activity;
            }

            @Override
            public void onActivityPaused(Activity activity) {
                MyApplication.this.currentActivity = null;
            }

            @Override
            public void onActivityStopped(Activity activity) {
                // don't clear current activity because activity may get stopped after
                // the new activity is resumed
            }

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

            }

            @Override
            public void onActivityDestroyed(Activity activity) {
                // don't clear current activity because activity may get destroyed after
                // the new activity is resumed
            }
        });
    }
}

Then configure your DI container to return instance of MyApplication for ContextProvider, e.g.

public class ApplicationModule extends AbstractModule {    
    @Provides
    ContextProvider provideMainActivity() {
        return MyApplication.getCurrent();
    }
}

(Note that implementation of getCurrent() is omitted from the code above. It's just a static variable that's set from the application constructor)

Answer 5

I'm using this for my tests. It's API > 19, and only for activities of your app, though.

@TargetApi(Build.VERSION_CODES.KITKAT)
public static Activity getRunningActivity() {
    try {
        Class activityThreadClass = Class.forName("android.app.ActivityThread");
        Object activityThread = activityThreadClass.getMethod("currentActivityThread")
                .invoke(null);
        Field activitiesField = activityThreadClass.getDeclaredField("mActivities");
        activitiesField.setAccessible(true);
        ArrayMap activities = (ArrayMap) activitiesField.get(activityThread);
        for (Object activityRecord : activities.values()) {
            Class activityRecordClass = activityRecord.getClass();
            Field pausedField = activityRecordClass.getDeclaredField("paused");
            pausedField.setAccessible(true);
            if (!pausedField.getBoolean(activityRecord)) {
                Field activityField = activityRecordClass.getDeclaredField("activity");
                activityField.setAccessible(true);
                return (Activity) activityField.get(activityRecord);
            }
        }
    } catch (Exception e) {
        throw new RuntimeException(e);
    }

    throw new RuntimeException("Didn't find the running activity");
}