showing a message dialog only once , when application is launched for the first time in android

Question

I've developed an application in android and one of the important requirements is to show a message dialog for language support ONLY when the application is running for the first time ,then it will disappear each time the user is running the application again , I've tried to use shared preferences but it didn't work , is there is any other way to do that ??

Answer 1

Use this function in onCreate handler:

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    ...
    if (isFirstTime()) {
        // show dialog
    }
    ...
}


/***
 * Checks that application runs first time and write flag at SharedPreferences 
 * @return true if 1st time
 */
private boolean isFirstTime()
{
    SharedPreferences preferences = getPreferences(MODE_PRIVATE);
    boolean ranBefore = preferences.getBoolean("RanBefore", false);
    if (!ranBefore) {
        // first time
        SharedPreferences.Editor editor = preferences.edit();
        editor.putBoolean("RanBefore", true);
        editor.commit();
    }
    return !ranBefore;
}

Note: it requires the permission to access a file on a storage: android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE