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androiddesign-patternslockscreen

Enable or disable the PatternLock screen from code

I have tried to find a way to disable the PatternLock screen temporarily. I don't want the lock to be disabled completely, but the user should not need to re-enter his pattern all the time.

My idea is to write a service which disables the pattern after some user activity and re-enables it after a while. (and even more)

There are apps on the market that do something like that (i.e. AutoLock or TogglePattern), so there must be a solution.

I know that I can prevent a lock completely by using:

getWindow().addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON)

or 

KeyguardLock.disableKeyguard()

But that is not what I'm after.

I saw the class com.android.internal.widget.LockPatternUtils in the android sources which is used by the settings activity, but this class is not (at least as far as I know) accessible by a "normal" application.

Do you have any suggestions?

Solution

  • Have you tried looking at the code for com.android.internal.widget.LockPatternUtils and doing what it does?

    It has something like this:

    public void setLockPatternEnabled(boolean enabled) {
    setBoolean(android.provider.Settings.System.LOCK_PATTERN_ENABLED, enabled);
}

private void setBoolean(String systemSettingKey, boolean enabled) {
    android.provider.Settings.System.putInt(
                    mContentResolver,
                    systemSettingKey,
                    enabled ? 1 : 0);
}

    You might be able to do something similar in your code.