Is it possible for my GPS application to continue running in the background while the tablet is on standby?

Question

I have created an application that generates a tracklog of the Android devices location. A GPS coordinate is recorded at regular intervals and stored on the device for later download. Currently, when the phone goes on standby, the program stops recording points. Is there a method that would allow the application to continue documenting location while the unit is on standby? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I found two solutions. 1.) Use Wakelock

public void wakeLock() {
         PowerManager powerManager = (PowerManager) getSystemService(POWER_SERVICE);
         PowerManager.WakeLock wakeLock = powerManager.newWakeLock(PowerManager.FULL_WAKE_LOCK, "MyApp::MyWakelockTag");
        wakeLock.acquire();
    }

with the following added to the manifest XML file,

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WAKE_LOCK"/>

or, 2.) use WindowManager to keep the device awake,

 public void noSleep() {
        if (bNoSleep == true){
        getWindow().addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON);
        } else if (bNoSleep != true){
            getWindow().clearFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_KEEP_SCREEN_ON);
        }
}

I've chosen the latter as a user selectable feature accessible via checkbox in the main workspace. I've also set this to engage automatically when a tracklog is initiated with the user having the option to disable this and allow standby/sleep to occur. I did implement a wakelock, but had some issues with it that may be related to a custom ROM on some of my Android devices. This is why I went ultimately went w/the windowmanager solution.