Question

I am writing an app using PhoneGap and Jquery, in my app i have a panic button, onclick it should automatically call a predefined number. I’m managing to open the native android dialer but still i need the user to click again on send button to dial.

How can I make a direct call from the app?

Answer 1

You will need to write a plugin for this functionality. The first thing you will need to do is add the:

android.permission.CALL_PRIVILEGED

to your AndroidManifest.xml. This will allow you to dial a number skipping the Dialer app. A small bit of JavaScript code is required for the plugin interface:

cordova.define("cordova/plugin/emergencydialer", 
  function(require, exports, module) {
    var exec = require("cordova/exec");
    var EmergencyDialer = function () {};

    var EmergencyDialerError = function(code, message) {
        this.code = code || null;
        this.message = message || '';
    };

    EmergencyDialer.CALL_FAILED = 0;

    EmergencyDialer.prototype.call = function(telephoneNumber,success,fail) {
        exec(success,fail,"EmergencyDialer", "call",[telephoneNumber]);
    };

    var emergencyDialer = new EmergencyDialer();
    module.exports = emergencyDialer;
});

Then you’ll need to write some Java code to do the phone call. You’ll need to create a new class that extends the Plugin class and write an execute method like this:

public PluginResult execute(String action, JSONArray args, String callbackId) {
    PluginResult.Status status = PluginResult.Status.OK;
    String result = "";

    try {
        if (action.equals("call")) {
            String number = "tel:" + args.getString(0);
            Intent callIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_CALL, Uri.parse(number)); 
            this.cordova.getActivity().startActivity(callIntent);
        }
        else {
            status = PluginResult.Status.INVALID_ACTION;
        }
        return new PluginResult(status, result);
    } catch (JSONException e) {
        return new PluginResult(PluginResult.Status.JSON_EXCEPTION);
    }
}

Whatever you call this class you’ll need to add a line in the res/xml/config.xml file so the PluginManager can create it.

<plugin name="EmergencyDialer" value="org.apache.cordova.plugins.EmergencyDialer"/>

and finally in your JavaScript code you’ll need to create they plugin and call it like this:

function panicButton() {
    var emergencyDialer = cordova.require("cordova/plugin/emergencydialer");
    emergencyDialer.call("18005551212");
}

That should about do it.