Question

I’m trying to make an application where the user can override the default behaviour of the volume up/down buttons (as well as the screen on/off button – is this possible?). Anyways, using some code along the lines of the following I can do this:

@Override
public boolean onKeyDown(int keyCode, KeyEvent event) {
super.onKeyUp(keyCode, event);
if ((keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_VOLUME_UP)) {
    //this is where I can do my stuff
    return true; //because I handled the event
}
return false; //otherwise the system can handle it        

}

But I would like it to be possible even when the application is not open, hence why I’d like to set up a broadcast receiver or maybe stick something in a service to make this possible.

Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

as well as the screen on/off button – is this possible?

Fortunately, no.

But I would like it to be possible even when the application is not open, hence why I’d like to set up a broadcast receiver or maybe stick something in a service to make this possible.

This is not possible for the volume buttons.

For example, AndroSS allows you to override the camera hardware button to take a screenshot.

That is the camera button. If the foreground activity does not consume a camera button click, that gets turned into a broadcast Intent, which other applications can listen for. This behavior is unique to the camera and media buttons and is not used with any other hardware buttons.