Search code examples
androidmanifestintentfilter

Android action.MAIN and category.LAUNCHER function

We mention android.intent.action.MAIN and android.intent.category.LAUNCHER as Intent filter of the launcher activity in the Manifest.xml. What is imp. of these two? What are their functionality?

Solution

  • From the docs:

    category -- Gives additional information about the action to execute. For example, CATEGORY_LAUNCHER means it should appear in the Launcher as a top-level application, while CATEGORY_ALTERNATIVE means it should be included in a list of alternative actions the user can perform on a piece of data.

    MAIN means that this activity is the entry point of the application, i.e. when you launch the application, this activity is created.