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androidandroid-activityandroid-serviceandroid-pendingintent

What is the best way to finish() an activity from a foreground service without bringing the app to the foreground?

I am trying to build an app that can be used for calling. My CallActivity is declared singleTop in the manifest file. I have a foreground service (CallService) which is started as soon as the app goes to the background while the user is on a call, since the device must not sleep during a call.

The notification for my CallService allows the user to either resume the call or hangup. My goal is to have the user press a button on the notification and hangup the ongoing call without bringing the app to the foreground.

I have tried using PendingIntent.getActivity() to start the CallActivity once the app is in background, from the CallService. But I have not been able to hangup the call yet. Here is some code...

 Intent returnToCallIntent = new Intent(this, CallActivity.class);
 PendingIntent returnPendingIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0, returnToCallIntent, 0);

 Intent hangUpCallIntent = new Intent(this, CallActivity.class);
 hangUpCallIntent.putExtra("ACTION_FINISH_ACTIVITY", true);
 PendingIntent hangUpPendingIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0, hangUpCallIntent, PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);

Right now both pending intents resolve to the same action which is hanging up the call while bring the app to the foreground. I figured out that this is happening because the 2 intents only differ in their extras and hence android does not distinguish them, i.e. intent#filterEquals() does not see any difference between them.

But the more important question is how can I finish() the CallActivity and have it pop off the backstack silently, without bringing it to the foreground. Also, after the CallActivity has been stopped, I need to stop the CallService in the background. So when the user taps the app in the recents screen, she/he should see the activity which was prior to the CallActivity on the backstack.

PS: Logic to hang up the call has been done in onNewIntent() method in CallActivity.

Solution

  • You can have your Activity register an anonymous BroadcastReceiver that listens for a specific broadcast Intent. When your Service wants to finish the Activity, it can just send the broadcast Intent that the Activity is listening for.

    In onReceive() of the BroadcastReceiver, just call finish(). This won't bring the Activity to the foreground.