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androidandroid-pendingintent
Alan
Alan

Reputation: 1208

When to use IntentSender vs. PendingIntent?

The Android documentation describes both PendingIntent and IntentSender classes but it's not clear when or why you would use an IntentSender over a PendingIntent -- in fact much of the description appears to be identical for both.

The PendingIntent documentation:

A description of an Intent and target action to perform with it. Instances of this class are created with (...); the returned object can be handed to other applications so that they can perform the action you described on your behalf at a later time.

The IntentSender documentation:

A description of an Intent and target action to perform with it. The returned object can be handed to other applications so that they can perform the action you described on your behalf at a later time.

Both classes are Parcelable and both classes allow the receiver to invoke the action with send or sendIntent (with nearly identical signatures).

Since you need an existing PendingIntent to create an IntentSender, in what situation would you ever want to create an IntentSender rather than just using your PendingIntent?

Upvotes: 15

Views: 1795

Answers (3)

Mohammad Reisi
Mohammad Reisi

Reputation: 116

1️⃣ PendingIntent: A PendingIntent is a special type of Intent that allows another app or system component to execute an action on behalf of your app, even if your app is not running.

Key Features of PendingIntent: ✅ Holds an Intent that will be executed later. ✅ Can be used for notifications, alarms, broadcasts, etc. ✅ Ensures the action runs with your app's permissions. ✅ Can be used multiple times or only once, depending on flags.

Example: PendingIntent in Notifications

Intent intent = new Intent(this, MyActivity.class);
PendingIntent pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(
    this, 0, intent, PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT
);

// Use it in a notification
Notification notification = new NotificationCompat.Builder(this, "channel_id")
    .setContentTitle("Reminder")
    .setContentText("Tap to open")
    .setContentIntent(pendingIntent)  // This executes `intent` when tapped
    .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_launcher)
    .build();

2️⃣ IntentSender: An IntentSender is a lightweight token that represents a PendingIntent but does not execute the action immediately. Instead, it is passed to an API that will trigger the some actions at the right time.

Key Features of IntentSender: ✅ Extracted from a PendingIntent using getIntentSender(). ✅ Used when an API requires an IntentSender instead of a PendingIntent. ✅ Commonly used in PackageInstaller, Activity.startIntentSenderForResult(), etc.

Example: IntentSender in PackageInstaller

Intent intent = new Intent(this, MyReceiver.class);
PendingIntent pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(
    this, 0, intent, PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT
);

IntentSender intentSender = pendingIntent.getIntentSender()

;

// Use it in PackageInstaller to uninstall an app

packageInstaller.uninstall("com.example.app", intentSender);

👉 Here, intentSender is used to receive the uninstall result instead of executing the intent immediately.

Upvotes: 0

Nikhil
Nikhil

Reputation: 1043

The difference which I notice is if I use IntentSender than launching activity launch in same task while PendingIntent create new task.

e.g:- Let suppose I have an app MyApp containing activity MyActivity and there is another app SomeApp and there is a functionality that clicking a button somehow MyActivity open above SomeApp's activity.

Now When I pass MyActivity using IntentSender click on a button MyActivity is launched above the SomeApp and after click on home button I check there is only one task in the background i.e SomeApp task. But if i pass MyActivity in PendingIntent and click on home button of device than there is two task in background one is SomeApp task another is MyApp task. So when you not want to perform operation in other task use IntentSender.

Upvotes: 0

Prad
Prad

Reputation: 515

There are really good examples and explanations here.

Here is a quick summary:

IntentSender

A IntentSender is an instance of android.content.IntentSender

Instances of IntentSender cannot be constructed directly but one can be obtained from a android.app.PendingIntent instance with PendingIntent.getIntentSender() since PendingIntent encapsulates an IntentSender.

IntentSender Documentation

PendingIntent

A PendingIntent is a token that you give to a foreign application (e.g AlarmManager or AppWidgetManager), which allows the foreign application to use your application's permissions to execute a predefined piece of code.

Basically, the foreign app that receives the PendingIntent, doesn't know the content of Intent which is wrapped by PendingIntent but the foreign app should be sending back the intent to main app when certai conditions are met.

PendingIntent Documentation

Upvotes: -2

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