Question

I’m trying to create programmability a home shortcut for any installed application.

Considering that the only thing I would have available would the application name, let’s say for example the Calculator com.android.calculator2 (1.5).

I’m using current code bellow, shortcut is created successfully but activity cannot be launched from shortcut (wrong activity class name I guess) and also sometimes the icon seems to be corrupted.

Also add com.android.launcher.permission.INSTALL_SHORTCUT to manifest.xml.

Is there a optimal way to achieved this?

String appName = "com.android.calculator2";
Context newAppContext = null;

// Get other package context
try {
    newAppContext =
        context.createPackageContext(appName, Context.CONTEXT_IGNORE_SECURITY);
} catch (NameNotFoundException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

// Create shortcut
if(newAppContext != null) {
    // Get Application Name
    PackageManager pm = context.getPackageManager();
    ApplicationInfo ai;

    try {
        ai = pm.getApplicationInfo(appName, 0);
    } catch (final NameNotFoundException e) {
        ai = null;
    }

    // Get application label
    String applicationName = (String) (ai != null ? pm.getApplicationLabel(ai) : "(unknown)");

    // Shortcut intent
    Intent shortcutIntent  = new Intent (Intent.ACTION_MAIN);

    /** Problem in here **
    shortcutIntent.setClassName(newAppContext, newAppContext.getClass().getName());
    *********************/

    shortcutIntent.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_LAUNCHER);
    shortcutIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
    shortcutIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);

    // Create intent
    final Intent putShortCutIntent = new Intent();
    putShortCutIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SHORTCUT_INTENT, shortcutIntent);
    putShortCutIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SHORTCUT_NAME, applicationName);
    putShortCutIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SHORTCUT_ICON_RESOURCE, 
                               Intent.ShortcutIconResource.fromContext(newAppContext,
                                                                       R.drawable.icon));
    putShortCutIntent.setAction("com.android.launcher.action.INSTALL_SHORTCUT");

    // Broadcast intent
    context.sendBroadcast(putShortCutIntent);
}

EDIT:

Managed to achieve this by getting the Intent from PackageManager.getLaunchIntentForPackage(String packageName).

So:

// Intent shortcutIntent  = new Intent (Intent.ACTION_MAIN);
// shortcutIntent.setClassName(newAppContext, newAppContext.getClass().getName());
// shortcutIntent.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_LAUNCHER);
// shortcutIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
// shortcutIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);

Intent shorcutIntent = pm.getLaunchIntentForPackage(appName);

Answer 1

You will get “wrong activity class name”, when it cannot find the main activity class in the package. It needs that info so that it can launch the correct Activity in the correct package. So in your example, it should be:

shortcutIntent.setClassName("com.android.calculator2", "ClassName");

I don’t know what the "ClassName" should be for the Calculator application(maybe you can check its source code), but it should be something like "com.android.calculator2.MainActivity"

EDIT:
Ok, it seems it is possible to get the "ClassName" dynamically:

PackageManager packageManager = context.getPackageManager();
ResolveInfo info = packageManager.resolveActivity(shortcutIntent, 0);
if(info != null) {
    shortcutIntent.setClassName(info.activityInfo.packageName, info.activityInfo.name);
}