Question

I have now spent 2 days trying to get this going. I am however completely bamboozled. Individually I have successfully got all the tasks working but I have NO idea how to go about the next part.

Please someone create the steps and simplify the tasks only. I don’t need the code (trying to save you time). I need to know HOW this can be achieved.

1. Every 5/10/15/20/30/60 minutes (according to user preference in app), updates will be checked online receiving a number (number of updates since last check).

2. Even when the app is terminated, I am hoping this can run as a service so updates are still checked (if that’s how it works)

3. Since looking into handler/timer/service/alarmmanager, I am really confused with this now so I also need to know the best way to achieve this.

So, could someone put it thus:

1. In ‘name’ activity, add the following code: …
2. Create ‘such’ file, adding etc etc in the manifest
3. In this part of the code, add your online check code
4. Put your status bar notify code here
   and so on…

I think the problem is I read way too much with peoples issues on SOF and got confused.

Truly appreciated.

Answer 1

You should use the Handler for timing while application is running and AlarmManager otherwise. For simplicity you could use the latter for both tasks using this API:

public void setRepeating (int type, long triggerAtTime, long interval, PendingIntent operation)

I found an example in this blog post. An excerpt:

1. Create a new PendingIntent with it’s getBroadcast() method.
2. Create an alarm using method above of AlarmManager.
3. Create a BroadcastReciever and register it in AndroidManifest.xml as described in the Developer Guide.
4. Check for updates in onReceive method of BroadcastReceiver.

Alternatively you could create an Activity:

1. First time it’s started schedule an alarm but use getActivity method for intent instead and pass your activity class to it.
2. On subsequent runs check for updates.