Hey,
I'm proud to announce another library of mine: BroadcastReceiver.
I will try to explain as hard as I can, as I didn't went in to deep in broadcasting and stuff.
So, the Android Operating System sends all kind of messages around where the normal users can't see thse. These are called Intents. Every intent has a special role in the Android OS. But the intents don't stay there, wandering around. This is where the BroadcastReceiver comes in. BroadcastReceivers picks up the intents that you need with an intentFilter. This way, you can start actions when something happens in your phone.
But not only can you receive intents, You can also send/broadcast your own intents in your phone, or even pass your own info to another app that it listening.
(please tell me if i'm somewhere wrong
) I only learned about broadcasting and intents through this library.
Let me give you an example.
When a SMS text message comes into your phone, the intent "android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED" is raised and send "through" your phone. Your standard text application (or even ChompSMS, GoSMS PRO, ...) picks the intent up with a BroadcastReceiver, and displays the incoming message on the notification bar and inbox, etc.
But how does it work now with the BroadcastReceiver Lib?
No manually changing the Android Manifest file is needed!
You only need a service to start working. (and an activity of course to start your service)
In your service process globals, declare the BroadcastReceiver;
I hope you know what this does, otherwise, I recommend you to read Klaus' Beginners Tutorial.
In the service_create, we start by initializing the library.
The parameter "BroadcastReceiver" is needed for calling a sub when an intent arrives. I will explain this later.
After the services has been created and the library has been initialized, we start setting up our receiver that will listen for intents. This is done in Service_start.
- AddAction will add the intent you are listening for in a filter. So when a message comes in, "android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED" is broadcasted and received.
- SetPriority sets the priority of the listening broadcast. The higher the value, the more important the incoming intent will be thus the quicker it will be called instead of other apps with a lower priority.
- registerReceiver starts your receiver and listening for intents/actions. You can add an extra addAction parameter to the filter.
Now you are done setting up your basic receiver, but now something should be called when a sub arrives: the onreceive method. This is called with the action string of the intent you are listening for.
As I mentionned before, under here starts with BroadcastReceiver, this is the eventname parameter you gave in earlier in the initialize method.
The toastmessage, in this case will show android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED if an sms has been received.
Next, we stop the broadcast with AbortBroadcast so no other applications will receive this intent. AbortBroadcast will only be called if the broadcast sended is an Ordered one. You can check this with:
This is basically IT for receiving broadcasts.
Now, there is 1 more thing you should know.
- You can send a broadcast in 2 ways.
1)
2)
Ofcourse instead of Broadcast.SMS_RECEIVED, you can put any string in there that you want.
The difference between these two is that when you send an ordered broadcast, the broadcast will be more accurate filtered on the android permission, and as I said, you can use AbortBroadcast on this one.
You could just open your Android Manifest File and see what permissions your app has.
There are still some more functions, but these are explained in the library itself.
If you want to find info about intents, you can find all of them here:
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Intent.html
Some Intents can't be broadcasted only by the system itself.
In the attachements, you can find the library files and a working sample of BroadcastReceiver.
NOTE: I FORGOT TO CHANGE THE VERSION OF BROADCASTRECEIVER TO 2.0 IN THE IDE. SO THE IDE MIGHT SAY VERSION 1.0 IN THE LIBRARY TAB
Comments, critiques, feedback is welcome!
Have fun!
Tomas
I'm proud to announce another library of mine: BroadcastReceiver.
I will try to explain as hard as I can, as I didn't went in to deep in broadcasting and stuff.
So, the Android Operating System sends all kind of messages around where the normal users can't see thse. These are called Intents. Every intent has a special role in the Android OS. But the intents don't stay there, wandering around. This is where the BroadcastReceiver comes in. BroadcastReceivers picks up the intents that you need with an intentFilter. This way, you can start actions when something happens in your phone.
But not only can you receive intents, You can also send/broadcast your own intents in your phone, or even pass your own info to another app that it listening.
(please tell me if i'm somewhere wrong
) I only learned about broadcasting and intents through this library.Let me give you an example.
When a SMS text message comes into your phone, the intent "android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED" is raised and send "through" your phone. Your standard text application (or even ChompSMS, GoSMS PRO, ...) picks the intent up with a BroadcastReceiver, and displays the incoming message on the notification bar and inbox, etc.
But how does it work now with the BroadcastReceiver Lib?
No manually changing the Android Manifest file is needed!
You only need a service to start working. (and an activity of course to start your service)
In your service process globals, declare the BroadcastReceiver;
B4X:
Dim Broadcast As BroadcastReceiverIn the service_create, we start by initializing the library.
B4X:
Broadcast.Initialize("BroadcastReceiver")After the services has been created and the library has been initialized, we start setting up our receiver that will listen for intents. This is done in Service_start.
B4X:
Sub Sub Service_Start (StartingIntent As Intent)
Broadcast.addAction("android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED")
Broadcast.addAction(Broadcast.SMS_RECEIVED)
Broadcast.SetPriority(2147483647)
Broadcast.registerReceiver("")
End Sub- AddAction will add the intent you are listening for in a filter. So when a message comes in, "android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED" is broadcasted and received.
- SetPriority sets the priority of the listening broadcast. The higher the value, the more important the incoming intent will be thus the quicker it will be called instead of other apps with a lower priority.
- registerReceiver starts your receiver and listening for intents/actions. You can add an extra addAction parameter to the filter.
Now you are done setting up your basic receiver, but now something should be called when a sub arrives: the onreceive method. This is called with the action string of the intent you are listening for.
As I mentionned before, under here starts with BroadcastReceiver, this is the eventname parameter you gave in earlier in the initialize method.
B4X:
Sub BroadcastReceiver_OnReceive (Action As String)
ToastMessageShow(Action,False)
'can only abort when sendOrderedbroadcast is called.
Broadcast.AbortBroadcast
End SubThe toastmessage, in this case will show android.provider.Telephony.SMS_RECEIVED if an sms has been received.
Next, we stop the broadcast with AbortBroadcast so no other applications will receive this intent. AbortBroadcast will only be called if the broadcast sended is an Ordered one. You can check this with:
B4X:
Broadcast.isOrderedBroadcastThis is basically IT for receiving broadcasts.
Now, there is 1 more thing you should know.
- You can send a broadcast in 2 ways.
1)
B4X:
sendBroadcast(Broadcast.SMS_RECEIVED)2)
B4X:
sendOrderedBroadcast(Broadcast.SMS_RECEIVED,"android.permission.READ_PHONE_STATE")Ofcourse instead of Broadcast.SMS_RECEIVED, you can put any string in there that you want.
The difference between these two is that when you send an ordered broadcast, the broadcast will be more accurate filtered on the android permission, and as I said, you can use AbortBroadcast on this one.
You could just open your Android Manifest File and see what permissions your app has.
There are still some more functions, but these are explained in the library itself.
If you want to find info about intents, you can find all of them here:
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/Intent.html
Some Intents can't be broadcasted only by the system itself.
In the attachements, you can find the library files and a working sample of BroadcastReceiver.
NOTE: I FORGOT TO CHANGE THE VERSION OF BROADCASTRECEIVER TO 2.0 IN THE IDE. SO THE IDE MIGHT SAY VERSION 1.0 IN THE LIBRARY TAB
Comments, critiques, feedback is welcome!
Have fun!
Tomas
Last edited:
