Question

I’m trying to call an activity from a Preference item

Ideally I’d like to simply specify an explicit intent in the xml for that Preference item

but my google fu has deserted me and I can only find examples of implicit intents, e.g.

<Preference android:title="@string/prefs_web_page" >
    <intent android:action="android.intent.action.VIEW"
            android:data="http://www.example.com" />
</Preference>

I have already called my activity elesewhere programatically, e.g.

Intent intent = new Intent(this, FileChooserActivity.class);

but I want to call this direct from the xml

is this possible or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Answer 1

You can do this:

Add this to your Preference XML:

<Preference
  android:key="TODO"
  android:title="@string/TODO"
  android:summary="@string/TODO">
    <intent
      android:action="com.example.test.pref.action"/>
</Preference>

And add this in your Manifest to Activity to be opened from Preferences:

<activity android:name=".todo"
  android:label="@string/todo">
  <intent-filter>
    <action android:name="com.example.test.pref.action" />
    <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
  </intent-filter>
</activity>

Make sure com.example.test.pref.action is unique!

Note:
If you need to open a Website or any Activity whose Manifest entry you can’t edit, you’ll need to programatically open it from your Activity com.example.test.pref.action with an Intent.