Check Widget is Placed on Android Screen

Question

Can someone tell me how to check that my widget have been placed on the homescreen?

I have some code in my app that should run only if the widget is placed on the homescreen.

Answer 1

Just saying, but...

    int ids[] = AppWidgetManager.getInstance(this).getAppWidgetIds(new ComponentName(this,MyAppWidgetProvider.class));

    Toast.makeText(this, "Number of widgets: "+ids.length, Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

Answer 2

You need to store that information yourself. I usually use the application preferences, but you could use anything. Generally widgets use services to communicate, so your code that does stuff is likely in a service, but using the preference allows any portion of your app to access this.

In your widget class that extends AppWidgetProvider the onEnabled is called when the widget is put on a homescreen and the onDeleted is (usually) called when it's removed. onDisabled is called when all copies are removed.

So in the code of your widget provider:

@Override
public void onEnabled(Context context) {
    super.onEnabled(context);
    setWidgetActive(true);
    context.startService(new Intent(appContext, WidgetUpdateService.class));
}

@Override
public void onDisabled(Context context) {
    Context appContext = context.getApplicationContext();
    setWidgetActive(false);
    context.stopService(new Intent(appContext, WidgetUpdateService.class));
    super.onDisabled(context);
}

private void setWidgetActive(boolean active){
    Context appContext = context.getApplicationContext();
    SharedPreferences prefs = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(appContext);
    SharedPreferences.Editor edit = prefs.edit();
    edit.putBoolean(Constants.WIDGET_ACTIVE, active);
    edit.commit();
}

Elsewhere in code, you would check to see if the widget is active by:

public boolean isWidgetActive(Context context){
    Context appContext = context.getApplicationContext();
    SharedPreferences prefs = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(context);
    return prefs.getBoolean(Constants.WIDGET_ACTIVE, false);
}

Answer 3

I know it's an old question, but looking at this today I saw that there are a couple of problems with the accepted answer from @larsona1:

1. if the user cleared the shared preferences - there's still widget, but the app won't know about it.
2. if the user regret between "add widget" and before pressing "ok" - onEnabled will be called anyway, and a widget will be registered in the home screen even though there is no widget, and no way to remove it later. (it may be a bug in ADT home launcher).

I found a solution to the first problem. No shared preferences are needed at all, since it's unreliable anyway. It has to be checked in runtime.

// in some class you define a static variable, say in S.java
static boolean sWidgetMayExist = true;

In your widget provider:

// MyAppWidgetProvider.java
// to respond to runtime changes, when widgets are added and removed
@Override
public void onEnabled(Context context) {
    super.onEnabled(context);
    S.sWidgetMayExist = true;
}

@Override
public void onDisabled(Context context) {
    super.onDisabled(context);
    S.sWidgetMayExist = true;
}

And, in your service code add this:

AppWidgetManager manager = null;
RemoteViews views = null;
ComponentName widgetComponent = null;

    // ..and in your update thread

    if (!S.sWidgetMayExist) { return; }

if (manager == null || widgetComponent == null) {
    widgetComponent = new ComponentName(c,
            MyAppWidgetProvider.class);
    manager = AppWidgetManager.getInstance(c);
}

if (manager.getAppWidgetIds(widgetComponent) == null) {
    S.sWidgetMayExist = false;
}