What is the purpose of "android.intent.category.DEFAULT"?

android intentfilter
Pravy picture Pravy · Apr 20, 2011 · Viewed 51.4k times · Source

What is the purpose of using android.intent.category.DEFAULT in the Category field of Intent Filters?

Answer

Özgür picture Özgür · Jan 21, 2014

Categories are used for implicit Intents. So, If your Activity can be started by an implicit Intent when no other specific category is assigned to activity, activity's Intent filter should include this category. (even if you have other categories in the Intent filter). If you are sure that your activity must be called with any other Category, don't use the Default.

Setting Category to Default doesn't mean that this Activity will be used by default when your app launches. The Activity just says to system that " Oh I could be started, even if the starter Intent's category is set to Nothing at all ! "

Related questions

Launch custom android application from android browser

Can anybody please guide me regarding how to launch my android application from the android browser?

Read More
How to implement my very own URI scheme on Android

Say I want to define that an URI such as: myapp://path/to/what/i/want?d=This%20is%20a%20test must be handled by my own application, or service. Notice that the scheme is "myapp" and not "http", or "…

Read More
What are intent-filters in Android?

In my android app, I wanted to start an activity 'B' from initial activity 'A'. I have created classes for both of these. However when using following code to start B, I get a runtime error: application has stopped unexpectedly, …

Read More