Question

I’m looking to implement a feature that logs out the user after X minutes of inactivity. After going through a similar answer on SO, the suggested method seems to be to –

• Have a timer running in the background. Schedule it to timeout after x minutes.
• In every function where the user interacts with the app (basically all event handlers), call a method that resets the timer.

I can’t think of anything better than this myself, but it’s seems to be a huge pain even for a medium sized application that has 6-7 different screens and a whole bunch of UI components. Is there a better way to handle this?

Thanks,
Teja.

Answer 1

Have a timer running in the background. Schedule it to timeout after x minutes.

No and yes. Use a timer if you’re implementing it in a Service or in an IntentService. Otherwise, don’t.

In every function where the user interacts with the app (basically all event handlers), call a method that resets the timer.

That solution would be hard to maintain.

You should have an IntentService (demonstrating article here) running in the background that can easily implement a TimerTask or a Handler and make the runnable code inside it fire a broadcast to your activities. In your activities you can easily add a BroadcastReciever and in that case you can log out the user if time is out. You can start your service when your application isn’t visible to the user.