How to implement Rate It feature in Android App

Question

I am developing an Android App. In which everything is working right. My app is ready to launch. But there I need to implement one more feature. I need to display a popup which contains

Rate It and Remind me later

Here if any user rate the app in market then the popup won't be disappeared. I have searched in Google and found one link. With this I understand that its not possible to know. So I need a suggestion for this.

Have anybody faced this situation before? If so, is there any solution or any alternative for this?

Answer 1

I implemented this a while back, to some extent. It is impossible to know whether or not a user has rated an app, to prevent ratings from becoming a currency (some developers might add an option like "Rate this app and get so and so in the app for free").

The class I wrote provides three buttons, and configures the dialog so that it is only shown after the app has been launched n times (users have a higher chance of rating the app if they've used it a bit before. Most of them are unlikely to even know what it does on the first run):

public class AppRater {
    private final static String APP_TITLE = "App Name";// App Name
    private final static String APP_PNAME = "com.example.name";// Package Name

    private final static int DAYS_UNTIL_PROMPT = 3;//Min number of days
    private final static int LAUNCHES_UNTIL_PROMPT = 3;//Min number of launches

    public static void app_launched(Context mContext) {
        SharedPreferences prefs = mContext.getSharedPreferences("apprater", 0);
        if (prefs.getBoolean("dontshowagain", false)) { return ; }

        SharedPreferences.Editor editor = prefs.edit();

        // Increment launch counter
        long launch_count = prefs.getLong("launch_count", 0) + 1;
        editor.putLong("launch_count", launch_count);

        // Get date of first launch
        Long date_firstLaunch = prefs.getLong("date_firstlaunch", 0);
        if (date_firstLaunch == 0) {
            date_firstLaunch = System.currentTimeMillis();
            editor.putLong("date_firstlaunch", date_firstLaunch);
        }

        // Wait at least n days before opening
        if (launch_count >= LAUNCHES_UNTIL_PROMPT) {
            if (System.currentTimeMillis() >= date_firstLaunch + 
                    (DAYS_UNTIL_PROMPT * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000)) {
                showRateDialog(mContext, editor);
            }
        }

        editor.commit();
    }   

    public static void showRateDialog(final Context mContext, final SharedPreferences.Editor editor) {
        final Dialog dialog = new Dialog(mContext);
        dialog.setTitle("Rate " + APP_TITLE);

        LinearLayout ll = new LinearLayout(mContext);
        ll.setOrientation(LinearLayout.VERTICAL);

        TextView tv = new TextView(mContext);
        tv.setText("If you enjoy using " + APP_TITLE + ", please take a moment to rate it. Thanks for your support!");
        tv.setWidth(240);
        tv.setPadding(4, 0, 4, 10);
        ll.addView(tv);

        Button b1 = new Button(mContext);
        b1.setText("Rate " + APP_TITLE);
        b1.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
            public void onClick(View v) {
                mContext.startActivity(new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse("market://details?id=" + APP_PNAME)));
                dialog.dismiss();
            }
        });        
        ll.addView(b1);

        Button b2 = new Button(mContext);
        b2.setText("Remind me later");
        b2.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
            public void onClick(View v) {
                dialog.dismiss();
            }
        });
        ll.addView(b2);

        Button b3 = new Button(mContext);
        b3.setText("No, thanks");
        b3.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
            public void onClick(View v) {
                if (editor != null) {
                    editor.putBoolean("dontshowagain", true);
                    editor.commit();
                }
                dialog.dismiss();
            }
        });
        ll.addView(b3);

        dialog.setContentView(ll);        
        dialog.show();        
    }
}

Integrating the class is as simple as adding:

AppRater.app_launched(this);

To your Activity. It only needs to be added to one Activity in the entire app.