I want to read out the shortcuts' and widgets' position and name on the screens of the launcher. Since every launcher is different, I will focus on the stock launcher of Android for the moment. I have not found an API to do this, so I am trying my luck with Java's Reflection API. So far I have been able to get the class and read out the type of the variable holding the items on the desktop called mDesktopItems: http://grepcode.com/file/repository.grepcode.com/java/ext/com.google.android/android-apps/2.2.2_r1/com/android/launcher2/Launcher.java#201 But to read out the variable's content, I need a reference to the launcher activity object. It's obvious that this object does not have to exist, but I can probably check regularly and once it does, I would fetch the data.
So how do I get a reference to the launcher activity object? Or could you think of a better way of fetching the required data?
I don't think this is going to work via reflection. The launcher is a separate app from yours, running in a different process under a different user in its own VM. You're not going to be able to get a reference to the launcher activity object. This is by design. Think of the security implications if any app could read the contents of any other app's variables.