Android: Start Activity from preferences.xml

Lama picture Lama · Sep 1, 2011 · Viewed 54.7k times · Source

I would like to start an Activity from a default preferences.xml, with < intent > tag. The Activities are well tested, the problem is not with that. (I'm extending PreferenceActivity in my app, so the preferences.xml is "comes" with that) Please look at the code, what's wrong?

preferences.xml:

.... 
<PreferenceCategory 
    android:title="@string/titleEtcSetup">
    <PreferenceScreen
        android:key="renameCourses"
        android:title="@string/titleRenameCourses"
        android:summary="@string/textRenameDisplayedCoursesNames">
        <intent
             android:action="android.intent.action.VIEW"
             android:targetPackage="my.notifier.ui"
             android:targetClass="my.notifier.ui.EditCoursesNamesActivity" />         
    </PreferenceScreen>
.....
</PreferenceCategory>
..... 

manifest.xml:

....
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="my.notifier.ui"....
....
<activity android:name=".EditCoursesNamesActivity" android:label="@string/titleRenameCourses">
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
            <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
        </intent-filter>
    </activity>
 .....

The Activity isn't calling when I press the "renameCourses item", nothing happens. The LogCat is "clear", no errors or warnings. I was searching a lot, and I didn't find a solution, maybe I just missed something... Please help!

Answer

Shygar picture Shygar · May 4, 2012

I was having the same issue. I got this working by only declaring the action in my AndroidManifest.xml, as such:

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
      package="com.example.myapp" android:versionName="1.3" android:versionCode="4">

...

    <activity android:name=".activities.MyActivity" 
              android:label="@string/my_activity_title"
              android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Black.NoTitleBar">
        <intent-filter>
           <action android:name="com.example.myapp.activities.MyActivity" />
           <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
       </intent-filter>
    </activity>

Then in my Preferences xml file:

<PreferenceCategory
        android:title="@string/my_activity_title">
    <PreferenceScreen
        android:title="@string/my_activity_title" 
        android:summary="@string/my_activity_title">
        <intent android:action="com.example.myapp.activities.MyActivity"/>
    </PreferenceScreen>
</PreferenceCategory>