Install APK programmatically on android

Jose R. Cruz picture Jose R. Cruz · Jun 15, 2011 · Viewed 9.7k times · Source

I've been trying to get an android application to install an APK on the sdcard programmatically but I'm running into a little trouble.

This is how I'm doing it:

Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);           
intent.setDataAndType("ApkFilePath...","application/vnd.android.package-archive");
activity.startActivityForResult(intent,5000);

Now that works ok, it brings the package manager and I can control what to do when the manager finishes installing the APK.

But the issue that I'm having is that if at the end of the installation the user clicks on "Open" instead of "Done" the "OnActivityResult" method is not called, as the manager still exists.... and this presents another issue on another requirement on the system.

Is there a way to know when the user has selected "Open" at the end of the package manager, or is there a way to force the manager to display only the buttons I want it to display?

Really could use the help, I've search everywhere and don't seem to find a solution

Answer

uwe picture uwe · Jul 7, 2011

You can add a receiver to your AndroidManifest.xml to listen to broadcasts if a new app is installed. Like this:

<receiver android:name=".PackageReceiver">
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.PACKAGE_ADDED" />
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.PACKAGE_CHANGED" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
        <data android:scheme="package" />
    </intent-filter>
</receiver>

This class then gets called when a new package is installed:

public class PackageReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {

  @Override
  public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
    // handle install event here
  }
}