Starting a View from a Service?

Question

Already asked a similar question, yet without much luck.

Suppose I have a service and I need a view to pop up above it. In the same time, they both should be intractable, i.e. the user should be able to both click buttons within the view, as well as ones on the service in the background.

Is this in theory possible? If yes, how should I initialize that view?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Yes it's possible, what you need to do is call the WindowManager service and add your view via the same.

WindowManager windowManager=(WindowManager)getSystemService(WINDOW_SERVICE);
LayoutInflater inflater=(LayoutInflater)getSystemService(LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
RelativeLayout layout=(RelativeLayout) inflater.inflate(R.layout.box,null);

You need a WindowManager.LayoutParams object which should contain the parameters for the layout

windowManager.addView(layout,params);

Well, adds the view

Answer 2

What you want is to add a view from your running service instance. This way you can persist the view across all activities - and from anywhere else. See this great example:

http://www.piwai.info/chatheads-basics/

Answer 3

Services most definitely can have a user interface: Input methods are an obvious example. See http://developer.android.com/resources/samples/SoftKeyboard/index.html for an example.

Answer 4

I guess you are misusing the word "Service". Service is invisible, Activities are visible.

There are no buttons in an Service!

So you have no choice! You should put both views in one Activity, and I would use a RelativeLayout and set the visibility of your chidren to GONE/Visible.

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/RelativeLayout.html

Also using a popup and making the layout under it clickable will disturb the user. You are completely changing User experience. I strongly suggest too make your popup appear at the top/bottom of your initial layout