Question

When I click the “Settings” page, my CheckBoxPreference shows exactly how I want it to at this stage, however when I select it, the state does not change (i.e. from Unchecked to Checked).

It seems to be retaining the value of false (default) and still running onPreferenceChanged with false as the value passed. I am running code inside my onPreferenceChangedListener that is dependent on the value of the preference that is changed. As it stands I only have one preference in here.

activity_preferences.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<PreferenceScreen xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
    <PreferenceScreen>
        <CheckBoxPreference 
            android:summaryOn="true"
            android:summaryOff="false"
            android:key="isReg"
            android:title="Receive Push Messages"
            android:selectable="true"
            android:enabled="true"
            android:persistent="true" />
    </PreferenceScreen>
</PreferenceScreen>

PrefsActivity.java:

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.preference.CheckBoxPreference;
import android.preference.Preference;
import android.preference.Preference.OnPreferenceChangeListener;
import android.preference.PreferenceActivity;

import com.google.android.gcm.GCMRegistrar;

public class PrefsActivity extends PreferenceActivity{

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {       
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);       
    addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.activity_preferences);

    Preference isReg = (Preference) findPreference("isReg");
    isReg.setOnPreferenceChangeListener(new OnPreferenceChangeListener(){

        public boolean onPreferenceChange(Preference pref, Object arg1) {
            boolean isReg = getSharedPreferences("PREFERENCE", MODE_PRIVATE).getBoolean("isReg", false);
            if (isReg){
                ServerUtilities.register(getApplicationContext(), GCMRegistrar.getRegistrationId(getApplicationContext()));
            }
            else {
                ServerUtilities.unregister(getApplicationContext(), GCMRegistrar.getRegistrationId(getApplicationContext()));
            }
            return isReg;
        }

    });
}
}

Answer 1

You are using the wrong preference widget as per in the code sample,

Preference isReg = (Preference) findPreference("isReg");

It should have been CheckBoxPreference as in

CheckBoxPreference isReg = (CheckBoxPreference) findPreference("isReg");

Edit
One thing I noticed, you’re not handling the preference activity properly…consider this code, always, call the preference’s commit method in order to save it!

public class PrefsActivity extends PreferenceActivity implements
                                   OnSharedPreferenceChangeListener{
CheckBoxPreference isReg;
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState){
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.activity_preferences);
    PreferenceManager.setDefaultValues(this,R.xml.activity_preferences, false);
    isReg = (CheckBoxPreference)findPreference("isReg");
    if (isReg != null){
            isReg.setOnPreferenceChangeListener(new OnPreferenceChangeListener(){
                @Override
                public boolean onPreferenceChange(Preference preference,
                        Object newValue) {
                    boolean blnIsReg = Boolean.getBoolean(newValue.toString());
                    Editor e = _prefs.edit();
                    e.putBoolean("isReg", blnIsReg);
                    e.commit();
                    return true;
                }
            });
        }
    }
}

@Override
public void onStart(){
    super.onStart();
    _prefs = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(this);
}

The listener that is implemented must be in this fashion, which is how the changes are effective:

@Override
public void onSharedPreferenceChanged(SharedPreferences sharedPreferences, String key) {
     Log.d(TAG, "onSharedPreferenceChanged; key = " + key);
}

By incorporating the listener, the logcat will show that the preference’s key is indeed being changed, i.e. “isReg”.