Android Question What is best practice now to make a widget ? in B4XPages and B4A 10.6/7

[AnandGupta]

All the thread I found in our Forum on widget making are very old.
Many use libraries which are not available or not advised to use.

So, what is best practice now to make a widget ?

Regards,

Anand

 

[William Lancee]

The term "Widget" has now several different meanings.

Software widget - Wikipedia

So let us know what you would like to achieve and we'll try to help.

 

[AnandGupta]

The term "Widget" has now several different meanings.

Sorry for not being clear.

I posted in Android Forum for Android Widget. The one we see in Android phones.

Like below,

Android home screen widgets tutorial - part II

Please start with the first part of this tutorial if you haven't read it before. In this part we will build a "quote of the day" widget. We will start with the layout. The widget is made of a Label for the text and an ImageView for the arrow button. The layout in the designer: You can see...

www.b4x.com

Any help is appreciated.

Regards,

Anand

 

[William Lancee]

I have not used this feature, but I am intrigued, others will have a quicker response.
Since it seems possible to draw on canvas in a widget, I will try to implement my Not-So-Simple Clock project.
I'll let you know of my progress.

 

[AnandGupta]

I'll let you know of my progress.

Thanks.

I hope @Erel replies, as his tutorial is very old compare to latest B4A version.

Regards,

Anand

 

[William Lancee]

I just tried the 24-hour clock by @MarkusR. It is dated 2018 and it works great.

B4A Clock 24 Widget

Here is my 24 hour clock as Widget Project. V 09.03.2018 i useing a dot for the seconds now and i set the service as foreground. (it is possible that this Widget drawing also if it is not visible, i am open for improvements ..)

www.b4x.com

 

[AnandGupta]

I just tried the 24-hour clock by @MarkusR. It is dated 2018 and it works great

Yes.

Presently I am playing with below ones, I found in our Forum,

Widget Layout (Resizable, Adaptive)

Not sure if this can be considered a Tutorial, my first attempt. Lately I started to play with Widgets, mostly for curiosity. The main problem I encountered was how to design the Layout to make it resizable and make the content to adapt automatically to size changes. Unluckily designing a widget...

www.b4x.com

B4A Clock 24 Widget

Here is my 24 hour clock as Widget Project. V 09.03.2018 i useing a dot for the seconds now and i set the service as foreground. (it is possible that this Widget drawing also if it is not visible, i am open for improvements ..)

www.b4x.com

WorldClock widget

This is a very simple WorldClock widget. I wanted to find out what is possible with B4A and widgets and so I started to create this project. I think the result is quite amazing. At the beginning of this project I haven't thought that this all is possible but thanks to the great Reflection...

www.b4x.com

Resizable Widgets

I am working on a resizable analog clock widget. Everything works fine, except when the user resizes the widget the actual clock stays the same size. That is, the widget takes up more space, but looks the same size. How can I make the widget expand when it is resized? Thanks

www.b4x.com

ListView or ScrollView in Homescreen Widgets?

I am working on app that lets user create scheduled alerts. I would like to have a widget which will show the user a list of his upcoming alerts. Since it is a list, I believe it should be done with a scrollable view like ListView or ScrollView. Android supports such widgets from 3.0. Is it...

www.b4x.com

Minimalistic Clock Widget

Here is my absolutely minimalistic clock widget. Written down in about one hour (or less). It shows just a simple digital clock with white numbers on a transparent background. No configuration options, no other GUI, just the simple widget. You can find the app in the market: AmberHome...

www.b4x.com

Android home screen widgets tutorial - part I

Edit: widgets are handled with receivers now. See the attached example. This tutorial will explain how to implement your own home screen widgets (also named App Widgets). It is important to understand that the widgets are created and managed in another process, different than the process that...

www.b4x.com

Android home screen widgets tutorial - part II

Please start with the first part of this tutorial if you haven't read it before. In this part we will build a "quote of the day" widget. We will start with the layout. The widget is made of a Label for the text and an ImageView for the arrow button. The layout in the designer: You can see...

www.b4x.com

Some work, some don't due to very old libraries required.

Since all are old codes, so I was wondering if there is a better way now in B4XPages logic.

Regards,

Anand

 

[William Lancee]

From what the tutorial says, the Android Widget is a special service with unique limitations. However the host/parent app can be anything, with or without classes.
So it can use B4XPages. The Widget service is started (passing the intent handler as a parameter) and then the widget event response sends the intend to the host/parent App.

Sub Service_Start (StartingIntent As Intent)   
    If rv.HandleWidgetEvents(StartingIntent) Then Return
End Sub

 

[AnandGupta]

So it can use B4XPages.

Ok, will try.

Regards,

Anand

 

[William Lancee]

Update. B4XPages produces persistent Apps, so not appropriate to Widgets, where you want the host/parent to go into the background.
You can close the MainPage and that seems to work, but then you might as well use a regular Activity.

 

[William Lancee]

F.Y.I. I started to adapt my Not-So-simple Clock to a widget. There are quite a few obstacles. The primary one is that all the 24 mini clocks run asynchronously, and the activity doesn't have persistent memory between re-activations initiated the Widget. There isn't enough time to animate from files, so the state of the image has to be saved in the Widget itself. Maybe I can do all the animation inside the Widget, without aid of the activity, whose only job would be to start the Widget.

Another problem is that the canvas can not be a global, so it has to be created on the fly, and can't be stored as a property of a class. I'll see what I can do tomorrow.
You may not be too interested in what I'm doing but I thought I'd share my experience with the Forum.

 

[AnandGupta]

You may not be too interested in what I'm doing but I thought I'd share my experience with the Forum.

All efforts are useful and helpful. I may not have this requirement now, but knowledge of it is going to help me in future, I believe.
Thanks for your hard work.

Regards,

Anand

 

[AnandGupta]

You can close the MainPage and that seems to work, but then you might as well use a regular Activity.

Yes this is looking tricky as I will want to open my app, which is now B4XPages, when the widget is touched.

Only @Erel can throw proper light here, I think.

Regards,

Anand

 

[Erel]

There is nothing special with widgets and B4XPages.

Starting an activity from a service is more or less not possible in Android 10 (it is possible with a special permission).

 

[AnandGupta]

Starting an activity from a service is more or less not possible in Android 10 (it is possible with a special permission).

Thanks for the reply.

So, taking the "widget tutorial 2" example, if I want the user to touch the widget to open a dialog box where he/she can change the url for quotes (for example), how can I implement the same ? (I have seen apps doing that)

Regards,

Anand

 

[Erel]

Try to call StartActivity(Main) on an Android 10+. According to Android docs it will not work, but it is worth a test.

 

[AnandGupta]

Try to call StartActivity(Main) on an Android 10+. According to Android docs it will not work, but it is worth a test.

Ok. Will check and revert.

Regards,

Anand

 

[vecino]

Try to call StartActivity(Main) on an Android 10+. According to Android docs it will not work, but it is worth a test.

Sorry for the intrusion, but I have scared myself when reading that.
What should be used then on Android V10?

 

[AnandGupta]

Sorry for the intrusion, but I have scared myself when reading that.
What should be used then on Android V10?

I do not have Android v10 or above, so I have not tested it.

You can check any existing widget code from Forum in your Android v10 or above and revert. It will help make further discussion on the outcome.

Regards,

Anand