As part of an ongoing project, I’m building a simplified replacement for Trebuchet (Android’s default launcher). One aspect that I need to simplify is showing Widgets on the launcher without requiring the user to add them by hand. Normally, Android restricts this by requiring apps to use the AppWidgetManager.EXTRA_APPWIDGET_ID intent to launch a system picker. The only way around this is for system apps to request android.permission.BIND_APPWIDGET in their manifest, so this method is only available on rooted devices where the app is installed at the system level (in /system/app or /system/priv-app). Continue reading Adding Android Widgets Without User Interaction
Category: Android
Fancy Android Version Numbers from Git
I recently started working on several Android projects, including a custom automatic updater (the target devices won’t have internet access, let alone the Play Store). While the system is working wonderfully, it relies on detecting changes in the app’s version number. Which I keep forgetting to change. As with most of my projects I’m using Git for version control. So let’s do something fancy, and generate the android version number from git’s commit and tag information. Continue reading Fancy Android Version Numbers from Git