Starting from Android 7.0 Google allows us to add custom quick settings tiles in addition to the default ones. You can add Quick Setting Tiles and set to launch specific actions from your app. For Example, VPN app Private Internet Access allows us to directly connect to VPN from Quick Settings instead of launching the app.
In this tutorial, we will create a sample app which displays random facts when the quick setting tile is clicked.
Make sure you have updated your Android SDK to 7.0 or above and create a virtual device to test the same.
Here I have created an Android Studio project with package com.learn2crack.tilesdemo also Activity as MainActivity and layout as activity_main.
Our main layout has a button to show a dialog which displays facts.
We create a custom class which creates and returns a Dialog. We are creating a dialog using AlertDialog.Builder and a random fact are displayed as a message. These random facts are defined in Constants.java file.
This dialog is displayed in a Activity by,
TileDialog.getDialog(this).show();package com.learn2crack.tilesdemo;
import android.app.AlertDialog;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.DialogInterface;
import java.util.Random;
public class TileDialog {
public static AlertDialog getDialog(Context context) {
AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(context);
builder.setTitle("Fact");
Random random = new Random();
builder.setMessage(Constants.facts[random.nextInt(6)]);
builder.setPositiveButton("Ok", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
@Override
public void onClick(DialogInterface dialogInterface, int i) {
dialogInterface.dismiss();
}
});
return builder.create();
}
}package com.learn2crack.tilesdemo;
public class Constants {
public static final String facts[] = {
"The domain name www.youtube.com was registered on February 14, 2005.",
"The average 21 year old has spent 5,000 hours playing video games, has exchanged 250,000 e-mails, instant and text messages and has spent 10,000 hours on the mobile phone",
"The first computer mouse was invented by Doug Engelbart in around 1964 and was made of wood.",
"On an average work day, a typist’s fingers travel 12.6 miles.",
"Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft was a college drop out.",
"While it took the radio 38 years, and the television a short 13 years, it took the World Wide Web only 4 years to reach 50 million users."
};
}We need to create a custom TileService in which we will handle the actions.
In our service, the onTileAdded() is called when our tile is first added to the Quick Settings.
The onStartListening() method is called when our Tile is in listening state. We can get the Tile object by getQsTile() method. With the Tile object, we can get, modify the Tile text, icon, state etc. Finally, updateTile() method can be called to update the Tile.
The onClick() method will be called when the tile is clicked. We can display a dialog or do other actions. Here we are displaying a dialog which shows random facts. We are checking whether the device is secure and using isSecure() method which returns true when the device is locked. So if the device is locked, we ask the user to unlock the device and display the dialog using unlockAndRun() method.
Our Tile can have 3 states,
Active State
It can be called as ON state. For example, your Wifi is active or device is in Airplane mode.
Inactive State
It can be called as OFF state. For example, the VPN app is turned off or Wifi is off.
Unavailable state
It is similar to disabled. You cannot perform click actions during this state.
These states can be set using setState() method on the Tile object.
The dialog can be displayed using showDialog() method which takes Dialog object as a parameter.
package com.learn2crack.tilesdemo;
import android.os.Build;
import android.service.quicksettings.Tile;
import android.service.quicksettings.TileService;
import android.support.annotation.RequiresApi;
import android.util.Log;
@RequiresApi(api = Build.VERSION_CODES.N)
public class MyTileService extends TileService {
public static final String TAG = MyTileService.class.getSimpleName();
@Override
public void onTileAdded() {
Log.d(TAG, "onTileAdded: ");
}
@Override
public void onStartListening() {
Tile tile = getQsTile();
Log.d(TAG, "onStartListening: "+tile.getLabel());
}
@Override
public void onClick() {
Log.d(TAG, "onClick: ");
if (!isSecure()) {
showDialog();
} else {
unlockAndRun(new Runnable() {
@Override
public void run() {
showDialog();
}
});
}
}
private void showDialog() {
showDialog(TileDialog.getDialog(this));
}
}Our TileService should be added to manifest. And the name, label, icon properties should be set. The permission property should be set as android.permission.BIND_QUICK_SETTINGS_TILE. An Intent filter should be set with action android.service.quicksettings.action.QS_TILE.
The Tile can be set in an active state using meta-data.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="com.learn2crack.tilesdemo">
<application
android:allowBackup="true"
android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
android:label="@string/app_name"
android:supportsRtl="true"
android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
<activity
android:name=".MainActivity"
android:label="@string/app_name"
android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER"/>
</intent-filter>
</activity>
<service
android:name=".MyTileService"
android:label="Show Facts"
android:icon="@drawable/ic_bulb"
android:permission="android.permission.BIND_QUICK_SETTINGS_TILE">
<intent-filter>
<action
android:name="android.service.quicksettings.action.QS_TILE"/>
</intent-filter>
<meta-data
android:name="android.service.quicksettings.ACTIVE_TILE"
android:value="true" />
</service>
</application>
</manifest>In our MainActivity, we display the dialog by calling
TileDialog.getDialog(this).show();
You can download the complete project as zip or fork from our Github repository.
Stay tuned!
Enjoy coding 🙂
