I know this in general is beyond the scope of SO, but I am looking for some basic yes/no info to see if it is even feasible to proceed... I am thinking about building and Android 'note-taking/annotation' app that runs 'over' other installed Android apps, such as the web browser for example.
Essentially, while the user is browsing, my app would be running in the bg as a service, and then they could activate it which would then essentially intercept user inputs and translate those on a transparent canvas over the web browser into lines, shapes, etc. The user could then take a screen-cap of their marking with the underlying web page, which would be stored to the sd card.
This is a very good idea and a great question, but sadly, I do not believe it is possible.
The way Android is designed only one Activity can have focus at a time, while a Service could run in the background, the user would not be able to interact with it. The user can only interact with the currently active Activity.
Again, love the idea, but it is sadly not supported.
You might be able to achieve this with the WindowManager service. You can then use that to call addView() with a view of type TYPE_SYSTEM_ALERT, or possibly TYPE_SYSTEM_OVERLAY (but see the notes in the documentation about taking input focus).
I haven't tried it myself, but I've seen several apps (often dictionary apps that translate whatever words you tap on) that do overlays, and they always seem to require the SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW permission.
Related
Is there a way to open my application when a user opens a certain application?
For instance, I want to launch my application's floating button as soon as the user opens Instagram. Or even better is they open the "story" camera?
This is different from inexplicit intent, since, I don't have a way of interacting with Instagram, but is it still possible?
Do I need to check with the system to see which application are currently open or is there another way of doing this?
As NomadMaker says, in general this is difficult to do because it would be a security issue. In fact, an issue like this was published as the Strandhogg vulnerability. That said, some apps (like LastPass) use/abuse the AccessibilityService API to get this information. This would be an OK way to do this if you're making an app for yourself, but is discouraged if you plan to distribute the app.
Is it possible to get the user behavior on the phone (for example Alpesh has an Android phone and he uses multiple apps, browser YouTube etc). Whatever he is doing on the phone I want to get all those things from behind (which apps he has installed, which app he opens and what he search on the phone, All these data I want to get programmatically so what all can be get in android).
For now I am aware that installed apps list can be get easily but I want to get usage history and what he do all on mobile.
This is not a code solution, but an answer to your question, so you can get start some where.
In my opinion your question title are asking about two things.
(part 1) Getting User Behavior on the Android Phone (part 2)(App History, Browse
History etc)
1- First part Getting User Behavior on the Android Phone:
There is a concept called context awareness. Short described; it is about gathering different information from the phone, like light sensor, motion sensor, sound, location or even user behavior etc. and depending on your app requirement and the gathered information:
You could send these information over cloud data store for statically usage
You could make your phone doing (behavior) different things depending on location, motion or what ever.
etc.
For context awareness it is an open area for pervasive computing research. And it is not just few lines of code to write, it is typically a complete solution depending on requirement. Example I have built a context awareness application to gather noise collected by phones from different locations for research purpose inspired from this framework, but I am pretty sure you can find other frameworks or even build your own, as I did in my case.
The mentioned framework has some examples.
2- The second part is about App History, Browse History etc.:
This is possible, but you still need to build a peace of software (App) to collect all these information (logs) from the phone. Hereafter you can make phone act on different conditions and/or again send it over a RESTful API over cloud service data store, there is no limit for it.
The problem is, there is no thing out of the box for your requirement. Even if you find frameworks you still need to research it and further work on it.
You can find different examples for your requirement, like to collect browser history, you can find SO question here:
Get browser history and search result in android
Or get list of installed application:
How to get a list of installed android applications and pick one to run
My point here is you need to solve small goals at a time and put your knowledge together at the end.
Both 1 and 2 can also be related to each other, depending on your achievement.
Conclusion
Make a goal to your project.
Define the main requirements and tasks of your project.
Research your options (Technology, Cost, Target Audience, What data I can or I should not collect, what is possible to collect, what is the limits, Privacy issues etc.).
Split your project in small assets and try to solve small problems/goals.
Finally you would be able to put the puzzles together and build your final application
but i want to get usage history and what he do all on mobile
This is not possible and shouldn't ever be possible. Each app is sandboxed by Android so apps cannot inspect what other apps are doing. Think about it, you wouldn't want apps to be able to intercept private information such as banking details.
Every app is isolated from the other ones. Unless you develop a system signed app, you will not be able to gather all that data.
What you could do is to develop your own Android Rom where you then develop your data collection the exact way you want. Then you need to distribute your rom, which is another story...
I'm having quite tough problem while developing a testing framework for android apps. The text got a bit long so the actual question is in bold for those that don't want to read the context.
Basically, what I'd like to achieve right now is to trace user activity while he's using the application as one of the features. There's my app that manages context data all the time and developer's app - the one being tested. My idea to do this was to get coordinates where user touched the screen along with taking a screenshot simultaneously. Then I'd use the coordinates to mark the spot on the screenshot to get the idea of what user was doing the whole time with the app. Take hints on user experience and trace crashes.
Non-system apps cannot take a screenshot for security reasons, but application itself can take a screenshot of its Activities without much trouble for non-rooted users, e.g. like here. My only hope here is to interfere with developers' code to implement the functionality of doing so while my testing app is running. Each Activity then would have to extend my overridden Activity instead of regular one, implement an interface, implement broadcast receiver etc.
I am going to write a library for developer who would like his app to be tested with my framework. I'd like it to do the job for me and be as non-intrusive as it's possible for him to use. How to achieve that the best way?
Ideal case would assume linking the library to project with maybe a small addition in manifest that'd get the job done and after just unlinking, removing that bit of xml in manifest for production.
That's an open question. I don't expect any bits of code, but some nifty Java trick, Android OS functionality or even completely other approach that'd solve my problem
I tried to be as clear as possible with the question, but that's a quite tough matter for me to describe so that could have turned out contrary. Don't hesitate to ask me for more details, to speak my mind more clearly or even rewrite the question. Thank you all very much for help!
I have a great idea for an Android app, but as I'm only familiar with php/js, I'm uncertain of which approach I should choose for creating it. The app will be based on a google map with a lot of position markers. There won't be any fancy animations or other heavy resource-demanding activities.
As I see it there are three different options:
Read up on Java and program the whole thing in Java
Create the map activity in Java as a mapview and then use webviews for the other activities (which can easily be scripted as html5 webpages.)
Script everything as a webapp (not really an option, as this is not a real mobile app imho.
I'm most keen on using no. 2 as I'm quite familiar with html/php/js/mysql. Have to read up on the html5 specifics, though. Questions:
I need access to GPS and camera hardware. Is that acheivable in webviews?
How complicated is it to pass variables between js in webview activities and java in other activities?
How big a difference in performance can I expect if I use option 1 vs option 2?
Other thoughts?
Kind regards,
Anders
You can choose number 2, but as we are talking about an android phone, you might want to get really accurate coordinates for your map, and you can only achieve this by accessing your phone GPS, through webviews the best you can get is the location trought the device internet IP adress, wich doesnt lead to a very accurate geo position.
The best choice is a 100% java application in my opinion.
1) Yes it's possible, but as commented it will be less accurate and probably slow.
2) Not complicated. Painful if you need loads of interaction between a webview and native app. Using a Javascript Interface that can be set up from the native app. You can basically inject javascript in a webview's html.
3) Heterogeneity of performance depending on device. Because your implementation will be based on the device's browser you can expect to get really sluggish behavior for older devices. Anything to do with HTML events (Dragging, Tabbing...) will have a knock on most devices, from my experience.
4) As #vodich comments there are other party frameworks. My benchmarking on PhoneGap and other js-based options is that they're a waste of time if you are looking at developing a professional app. I haven't developed on Adobe AIR but find a pain the need to be installing plugins to get native functionality (access to sensors, camera, etc) Mobile is all about fast, responsive behaviour. HDI is your finger, user is fast, so app needs to be fast.
EDIT: So hell yeah! Java FTW!
Albert.
4.Other toughts?
Yes, if you really want to make a great Android app, you should be using only Android and specific Android UI components, and give it a native look and feel. And regarding 1,2 yes it is possible, I would say not so complicated to just integrate them, but I think you'll eventually get in big problems.
Learn Java and write your application natively.
Webviews might allow you to use your php skills to present something to the user, but it's entirely one-way - you'll not be able to interact with what's inside.
The Android developer site offers fantastic documentation and jumping from PHP to Java isn't greatly difficult, though you'll need to get used to strict typing and "real" OOP.
Other thoughts? Don't go down the PhoneGap/Cross platform toolkit road - it might allow you to write applications for multiple platforms and using your current skills, but in the end you get a subpar app that doesn't feel right on either platform and doesn't fair well as future versions of iOS and Android are released.
I basically want to add a feature to an app I am making but it would require me to know when the user closes certain apps. For example if the user closes any of the following; Maps, Firefox, Facebook, and Camera, A yes/no notification, kinda specific to the app, would come up for the user to answer.
It's something that sounds complicated i know but im pretty sure I've seen it done on a few android apps before.
Thanks
edit: so i was thinking since tasker can perform a task upon opening an app and then stopping the task when closing the app i can do what i want right?
The closest option available for monitoring the status of other applications and packages is through the use of a BroadcastReceiver registered to listen for Intents related to packages or applications. I looked through the intents available (the actions are constants with names starting with ACTION_), and none were directly related to another application closing, however you may be able to capture something, such as a changed battery status, that can look at the status of running applications in question.