Question

In my app I have a system where I am able to show dialogs from anywhere in the app, even from secondary threads.When I receive some notifications from the server, I just bring the dialog in front of user eyes(the dialog is shown in a transparent activity opened from the application context). My problem is that when the app is in background and receives signals from the server, it starts the transparent activity containing the dialog, so the app comes in foreground – which is against android(and my) rules.

I created a notification system so the incomings from server are shown is the status bar.
I associated with the notification the transparent activity(which holds the dialog), so when the user click on the notification, will be brought to the dialog.

Intent notificationIntent = new Intent(CVSApplication.getInstance(), CVSDialogActivity.class);
notificationIntent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP);
PendingIntent contentIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(CVSApplication.getInstance(), 0, notificationIntent, 0);

The problem is the application is anyway brought to front, even if the user do not click on the notification.

Is there any way to prevent CVSDialogActivity from returning from backgound when startActivity is called?
Here is the intent which starts the CVSDialogActivity:

intent = new Intent(app, CVSDialogActivity.class);
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
intent.putExtra(USE_CUSTOM_CONTENT, false);
intent.putExtra(INSTANCE, this.hashCode());

I also tried this variant:

intent = new Intent(app, CVSDialogActivity.class);
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK)
      .addFlags(Intent.FLAG_FROM_BACKGROUND);
intent.putExtra(USE_CUSTOM_CONTENT, false);
intent.putExtra(INSTANCE, this.hashCode());

,but when startActivity(intent) is called the app is brought to front.(I want to show the activity containing the dialog, but in background, and when the user click on the notification, to bring the app to foreground).

Thanks,
Alex

Answer 1

I’ve found a way to resolve this. I created a system which tell me if the app is in background or not(using running processes) like this:

public boolean isInBackground(){
    ActivityManager activityManager = (ActivityManager) getSystemService(ACTIVITY_SERVICE);
    List<RunningAppProcessInfo> appProcesses= activityManager.getRunningAppProcesses();     


    for (RunningAppProcessInfo appProcess : appProcesses) {

        PackageInfo p = null;
        try {
            p = this.getPackageManager().getPackageInfo(appProcess.pkgList[0], PackageManager.GET_PERMISSIONS);
        } catch (NameNotFoundException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }



        if(p != null && p.packageName.equals(getPackageName()) && appProcess.importance == RunningAppProcessInfo.IMPORTANCE_FOREGROUND){                                
            System.out.println("!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Is in background: false");
            return false;
        }
    }

    System.out.println("!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Is in background: true");
    return true;
}

Now if I am in background, I will not start the dialog, I will start only the notification, and when the notification is pressed, the application is brought to the front and the dialog is shown to the user.

Alex.