How to disable Home/Menu button in Android above 4.0?

I am developing a lockscreen application, and so far have achieved everything needed for the app to be working.

But I can't disable the home/menu buttons available as virtual as well soft in Android devices. I have gone through every possible answer on SO and other sites but can't achieve it.

Is there any tested and working workaround? Thanks in advance.

Solution

One way is to display a dialog where the LayoutParams type is set to TYPE_SYSTEM_ERROR and set the owner of this Dialog to your "lockscreen" Activity to block the home button.

Here is an example on how this can be done: Update: looks like this only works with pre Android 4.+ https://github.com/Joisar/LockScreenApp/blob/master/LockScreenApp/src/com/mehuljoisar/lockscreen/utils/LockscreenUtils.java

Another way is to add your contentView directly to the WindowManager where the LayoutParams type is set to TYPE_SYSTEM_ERROR

...
onCreate(){

    //setContentView(R.layout.main_content);
    //instead add a View directly to the WindowManager
    View contentView = View.inflate(this, R.layout.main_content, null);
    LayoutParams lockLayoutParams = new LayoutParams();
            lockLayoutParams.width = LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT;
            lockLayoutParams.height = LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT;
            lockLayoutParams.type = LayoutParams.TYPE_SYSTEM_ERROR;

            //LOCK
            getWindowManager().addView(contentView, lockLayoutParams);

...
            //UNLOCK
            getWindowManager().removeView(contentView);

The downside I had with this approach is that it looks to not support more complex views. I got a lot of flicker with ListViews in Fragments etc.

Some example projects where this is used:

https://github.com/Chin-Z/ArcherKeyguard/blob/master/src/com/lovewuchin/app/archerkeyguard/util/LockLayer.java

https://github.com/radames/ScreenLock-Android/blob/master/src/com/eva/me/mysquarescreenlock/lockutil/LockLayer.java

More answers to similiar question here: How to disable Home and other system buttons in Android?