Question

I have an activity in which I want to track the time elapsed between two actions(for example startAction and endAction). I’ve used the following code to implement a timer that increments every 500 ms after the user presses the button for startAction:

TextView dayTimer = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.tvDayTimer);
long startTime;
class DayTimer extends TimerTask {

             @Override
             public void run() {
                 BBCAndroid.this.runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {

                  
                     public void run() {
                        long millis = SystemClock.elapsedRealtime() - startTime;
                        int seconds = (int) (millis / 1000);
                        int minutes = seconds / 60;
                        seconds     = seconds % 60;

                        dayTimer.setText(String.format("%d:%02d", minutes, seconds));
                     }
                 });
             }
        };


      startDayButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
            
            public void onClick(View v) {
                // TODO Auto-generated method stub
                
                            startTime = SystemClock.elapsedRealtime();
                        timer.schedule(new DayTimer(),  0,500);
                        LoginResult.DayState = 1;
                        startDayButton.setEnabled(false);
                        endDayButton.setEnabled(true);
            }
        });

Now my problem is that, if I exit the application the timer stops. How can I make it run even when the user is out of the app?
In summary, I need a timer that counts even if the app is closed.

Answer 1

You can start a Service and it will be up and running even if your application is closed.

Here is a good tutorial.