Question

I have some intent filters created that work fine but – I only get told what state the screen/phone is in after it changes. How do I find the current state? This is my filter –

    receiver = new EventHandler();
    IntentFilter filter = new IntentFilter(Intent.ACTION_BATTERY_CHANGED);
    filter.addAction(Intent.ACTION_SCREEN_ON);
    filter.addAction(Intent.ACTION_SCREEN_OFF);
    filter.addAction(TelephonyManager.ACTION_PHONE_STATE_CHANGED); // for calls
    registerReceiver(receiver, filter);

I get an immediate notification for the battery state even though it hasn’t changed. Would be nice if the other intents fired a dummy notification like that.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You only get a return on the battery state immediately because ACTION_BATTERY_CHANGED is a sticky broadcast and is persisted at all times.

The other three are one-shot broadcast intents only sent when the ‘action’ has occurred. You will need to call methods on the various ‘manager’ classes to get an instant state.

For example, TelephonyManager has a getCallState() method and PowerManager which has a isScreenOn() method.

I haven’t tried either myself but the docs suggest they’ll work for what you need.

See…

TelephonyManager

PowerManager