Android Question Resume (?) question

[DPaul]

Hi,

Many, many years ago I developed an aplication on what was known as a "PDA", the iPaq (No android, no B4A). The users liked it a lot, but it fell into oblivia as hardware evolved.
Recently I was asked to build the same thing again on a tablet, and using B4A, i am getting a pretty
good result.

One thing however: on the iPaq it was possible to take complete programmatic control of the little silver buttons (hardware) at the bottom of the machine. These then became app-functional and also overrode the original meaning of the button like "open explorer" etc...

My question: is it possible to override the "things" on the edge of the tablet, preventing it from sending the app to the back. The best would be that once the app starts, it stays on top no matter which of these "tablet buttons" is (accidentally) pressed. The app could release itself with some exit button from the inside of the app.
Am i dreaming ?

thx,
Paul

 

[Cableguy]

The iPAQ was a Windows Mobile device, and at that time we had B4Ppc, which started this great venture now called B4X...

You can set your activitie(s) to listen to the buttons touch event (key_pressed I think, but it should be listed in the activity events list) and act (or ignore) according to the key that was pressed.
Another approach is to set a kiosk like environment for your app, but be aware, the user should/will always be able to get to the underlying environment one way or another.

 

[Erel]

Note that you cannot intercept the home button and the recent apps button. You can implement a kiosk application though it will not be perfect (https://www.b4x.com/search?query=Kiosk).

 

[Cableguy]

Note that you cannot intercept the home button and the recent apps button.

... But a service could detect the app going into background and force it back to foreground, right?

 

[Erel]

Yes, this is exactly what the kiosk example tries to do. However it is not perfect as the user can kill your app or uninstall it.

Making your app the home launcher improves it.

See this discussion: https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/10839/#content

 

[DPaul]

Wow guys, thanks, we'll give this a try !
Paul

 

[JakeBullet70]

If we have root, can we grab the hardware buttons?

 

[Erel]

There are no APIs available to catch those buttons.