Twitter Authentication through Android's AccountManager classes

Question

I am developing an android application and want to integrate Twitter.

What I understand is if on user's device, official android Twitter app is installed then we can authenticate using account manager as mentined here.. and if not installed then show twitter login web page.

Is my understanding correct?

Now authenticating using twitter web login page is working fine. But how do I login using account manager?

Using AccountsType as "com.twitter.android.auth.login" I got token and token secret using account manager from •com.twitter.android.oauth.token •com.twitter.android.oauth.token.secret

I am using Twitter4J, and authenticating with my CONSUMER_KEY & CONSUMER_SECRET along with recvd. tokens. but authentication always fails.

CONSUMER_KEY & CONSUMER_SECRET are the keys I got when I registered the app at twitter... but I dont understand how can I use these keys with Official Android Twitter app authentication?

Pls. let me know Thanks

Here is my code

public class TwitterAuthentication {    
    private static final String TAG = "TwitterAuthentication";
    private static final int MSG_GOT_AUTH_TOKEN = 100;
    private static final int MSG_GOT_AUTH_SECRET = 101;
    private static final int MSG_NO_AUT_TOKEN_RECVD = 102;

    public static Twitter mTwitter = null;
    private Activity mActivity = null;
    private SharedPreferences prefs;
    private MessageHandler handler = new MessageHandler();
    public static boolean bAuthenticationDone = false;



    public TwitterAuthentication(Activity activity){
        mActivity = activity;
        prefs = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(mActivity);
        if (null == mTwitter){
            mTwitter = new TwitterFactory().getInstance();;
            mTwitter.setOAuthConsumer(Constant.CONSUMER_KEY, Constant.CONSUMER_SECRET);
            bAuthenticationDone = false;
        }

    }

    public void LoginTwitter(){
        if (Constants.DEBUG)Log.d(TAG,"LoginTwitter");
        if (bAuthenticationDone){
            TwitterSessionEvents.onLoginSuccess();
        }
        else if (!isSessionValid()){
            AuthTwitter();
        }
        else{

            bAuthenticationDone = true;
            TwitterSessionEvents.onLoginSuccess();
        }       
    }

    public boolean isSessionValid(){
        boolean ret = false;
        if (null != prefs && null != mTwitter){
            String token = prefs.getString(Constant.OAUTH_TOKEN, "");
            String secret = prefs.getString(Constant.OAUTH_TOKEN_SECRET, "");   
            if (null != token && null != secret && token.length()>0 && secret.length()>0){
                AccessToken a = new AccessToken(token,secret);  
                mTwitter.setOAuthAccessToken(a);
                try {
                    mTwitter.getAccountSettings();
                    keys.User_Id = mTwitter.getScreenName();
                    ret = true;
                } catch (TwitterException e) {
                    ret = false;
                }
            }
        }
        return ret;
    }

    public void AuthTwitter(){

        // First check if Account manager has valid token
        // Result of this is send in MSG
        CheckAccManagerForTwitter();

    }


    public Twitter getTwitter(){
        return mTwitter;
    }

    private boolean CheckAccManagerForTwitter(){

        AccountManager am = AccountManager.get(mActivity); 
        Account[] accts = am.getAccountsByType("com.twitter.android.auth.login");
        if(accts.length > 0) {
            Account acct = accts[0];

            am.getAuthToken(acct, "com.twitter.android.oauth.token", null, mActivity, new AccountManagerCallback<Bundle>() {

                @Override
                public void run(AccountManagerFuture<Bundle> arg0) {
                    try {
                        Bundle b = arg0.getResult();
                        String token = b.getString(AccountManager.KEY_AUTHTOKEN);
                        String userName = b.getString(AccountManager.KEY_ACCOUNT_NAME);
                        handler.sendMessage(handler.obtainMessage(MSG_GOT_AUTH_TOKEN, token));
                    }
                    catch (Exception e) {
                        Log.e(TAG, "EXCEPTION@AUTHTOKEN");
                        handler.sendEmptyMessage(MSG_NO_AUT_TOKEN_RECVD);
                    }
                }}, null); 

            am.getAuthToken(acct, "com.twitter.android.oauth.token.secret", null, mActivity, new AccountManagerCallback<Bundle>() {

                    @Override
                    public void run(AccountManagerFuture<Bundle> arg0) {
                        try {
                            Bundle b = arg0.getResult();
                            String secret = b.getString(AccountManager.KEY_AUTHTOKEN);
                            handler.sendMessage(handler.obtainMessage(MSG_GOT_AUTH_SECRET,secret));

                            }
                        catch (Exception e) {
                            Log.e(TAG, "EXCEPTION@AUTHTOKEN");
                            handler.sendEmptyMessage(MSG_NO_AUT_TOKEN_RECVD);
                            }
                        }}, null); 
                //
        }
        else{
            // No twitter account found in Account Manager
            Log.e(TAG, "No Twitter account in Account manager");
            handler.sendEmptyMessage(MSG_NO_AUT_TOKEN_RECVD);

        }

        return true;
        }

    class MessageHandler extends Handler {
        String token = null;
        String secret = null;
        @Override
        public void handleMessage(Message msg) {
            if (msg.what == MSG_GOT_AUTH_TOKEN | msg.what ==MSG_GOT_AUTH_SECRET){
                if (msg.what == MSG_GOT_AUTH_TOKEN){        
                    token = (String)msg.obj;
                }
                else if (msg.what == MSG_GOT_AUTH_SECRET){
                    secret = (String)msg.obj;
                }
                if (null != token && null != secret){
                    AccessToken accesstoken = new AccessToken(token,secret);
                    mTwitter.setOAuthAccessToken(accesstoken);
                    try {
                        mTwitter.getAccountSettings();
                        keys.User_Id = mTwitter.getScreenName();                    
                    } catch (Exception e) {
                        // That means Authentication Failed
                        // So fall back to web login 
                        Intent i = new Intent(mActivity.getApplicationContext(), PrepareRequestTokenActivity.class);
                        mActivity.startActivity(i);                 
                    }
                }

            }
            else if (msg.what == MSG_NO_AUT_TOKEN_RECVD){
                // That means There is no twiter account with Account Manager
                // So fall back to web login 
                Intent i = new Intent(mActivity.getApplicationContext(), PrepareRequestTokenActivity.class);
                mActivity.startActivity(i);                 
            }
        }
    }



    public void LogoutTwiter(){


    }

}

Answer 1

The com.twitter.android.oauth.token and com.twitter.android.oauth.token.secret credentials returned by Android's AccountManager only authenticate using Twitter's official Consumer Key and Secret. AFAIK They're not actually useful to third party developers.

With respect to Twitter I'll just say the official Consumer Key/Secret pair is "out there", and if Twitter changed them via an app update they'd break OAuth for every user without that app update.

Answer 2

well you use the secret and consumer key to actually get a token. by using the android accounts you get the token from them.

So in general to do a tweet for example you only need a token and as i said you get that one either from the accounts or from twitter4j. so after you get the token from the accounts you need to set it as your twitter 4jsdk token and use the api regularly.

Hope this makes sense.