Open an url in android browser, avoid multiple tabs

Question

My project is mostly a web application. Now I have an android app with a home screen widget and would like to open a web page in the built-in browser on some user actions. That is easy. In MyAppWidgetProvider.onUpdate I create a new intent:

Intent intent = new Intent("android.intent.action.VIEW", 
    Uri.parse("http://my.example.com/"));
PendingIntent pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(context, 0, intent, 0);
views.setOnClickPendingIntent(R.id.text, pendingIntent);

Unfortunately, a new browser window/tab is opened every time the user clicks the widget. My page contains some fancy AJAX/javascript running in the background and regularly sending http requests. So I end up having 8 tabs containing the same page and continuously sending 8-fold amount of http requests.

Is there any way, e.g. different action or additional parameters to avoid opening new tabs?

As a workaround I am now thinking about creating a new activity containing a WebView, but would like to avoid this complexity.

Answer 1

Yes, this is possible. Use http://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Browser.html#EXTRA_APPLICATION_ID to ensure that the same browser tab is reused for your application. For example:

Context context = widget.getContext();
Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, uri);
intent.putExtra(Browser.EXTRA_APPLICATION_ID, context.getPackageName());