CODEWITHSUNDEEP
android
Alex Newman
Alex Newman

Reputation: 1397

Android define shortcut that can be used in custom launcher

In Nova Launcher (and many other custom ones) there is a Gesture configuration where you can assign various actions to a gesture. Among those actions there is a Shortcuts tab. How can I add a shortcut in my own app that can be recognized by the launcher? (I suppose it's something that I have to add to the Manifest and set an Intent to it)

EDIT: Here's an image to point out those actions.

Upvotes: 3

Views: 1469

Answers (2)

Kevin TeslaCoil
Kevin TeslaCoil

Reputation: 10097

These are very poorly documented and unfortunately were previously called "Launcher shortcuts" and now have been left nameless. In addition to being in Nova's gesture menus and similar, they also show next to widgets in the widget drawer. I think of the as "widget shortcuts".

The official documentation seems to be limited to a demo in ApiDemos: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/development/+/master/samples/ApiDemos/src/com/example/android/apis/app/LauncherShortcuts.java

The idea is that in your manifest you handle android.intent.action.CREATE_SHORTCUT and return a result to the launcher with the label, icon and target intent. Then the launcher can make it into an icon on the desktop or just use the intent for a gesture or whatever.

In your AndroidManifest.xml

<activity android:name=".CreateShortcut">
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.CREATE_SHORTCUT" />
            <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
    </intent-filter>
</activity>

Then when the user picks your shortcut the launcher does a startActivityForResult of that activity, you can either finish right away with a result, or you can display a UI to the user to let them configure the shortcut. Either way, when ready return the info to the launcher:

Intent result = new Intent();
result.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SHORTCUT_INTENT, targetIntent);
result.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SHORTCUT_NAME, targetLabel);
Parcelable iconResource = Intent.ShortcutIconResource.fromContext(
            this,  R.drawable.ic_launcher_shortcut);
result.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_SHORTCUT_ICON_RESOURCE, iconResource);

setResult(RESULT_OK, result);
finish();

Upvotes: 8

ditn
ditn

Reputation: 1446

Are you referring to App Shortcuts? The Android developer guide has quite a thorough tutorial on them.

Upvotes: 0

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