CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidandroid-manifest
afonseca
afonseca

Reputation: 827

How do I get multiple icons to launch different activities in one application?

I have an application with two activities and I'd like to be able to have two icons appear in the launcher, each launching the respective activity within the app.

Specifically, I want one icon to launch my main app, and another icon to launch my settings activity. Is this possible?

Here is what I've tried so far:

    <activity android:label="MyApp" android:name=".MyApp">
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name=".MyApp"/>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/>
            <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER"/>
        </intent-filter>
    </activity>


    <activity android:label="Settings" android:name=".Settings">
        <intent-filter>
            <action android:name=".Settings"/>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/>
            <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER"/>
        </intent-filter>
    </activity>

This creates two launcher icons, but they both run my main app instead of the second icon running my settings app. I've tried just having the launcher category but then I don't get an icon so it looks like I need the main action as well.

Is this the right approach or should I be declaring two applications in the manifest instead?

Upvotes: 50

Views: 25109

Answers (2)

treed
treed

Reputation: 136

You're definitely going in the right direction. This is what I have (truncated, because I have all of my activities in the list while I'm devving for fast access):

<activity android:name=".DeckDrill"
          android:label="DeckDrill">
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
    </intent-filter>
</activity>
<activity android:name=".DeckList"
          android:label="DeckList">
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
    </intent-filter>
</activity>

I think what may be happening is interference from your action elements which specify the name of your class. I'm pretty sure that actions and categories need to refer to constants. I don't know how that would result in what you're seeing, but you could try removing them. Other than that, you pretty much have what I have.

Upvotes: 8

Rich Schuler
Rich Schuler

Reputation: 41972

What you need to do is have your settings activity launch in another task. You can do this by specifying its task affinity. This is done with the attribute android:taskAffinity. By default all activities share the same task affinity that defaults to main package specified in the manifest. On your settings activity you can specify android:taskAffinity="your.own.package.SettingsTask" to have the settings activity launch in its own task.

Extra documentation.

Upvotes: 64

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