Android 4.0: widgets not appearing?

by

So here’s the solution I came up with:

You need an activity that will appear on the launcher. So first we have ye olde widget receiver, like so:

<receiver android:name=".VolumeProfilesWidget" android:label="@string/app_name">
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.appwidget.action.APPWIDGET_UPDATE" />                
        <!-- Broadcast Receiver that will also process our self created action -->
        <action android:name="net.thepurge.volumeprofiles.plus.VolumeProfilesWidget.ACTION_WIDGET_RECEIVER"/>               
    </intent-filter>
    <meta-data android:name="android.appwidget.provider" android:resource="@xml/volumeprofiles_widget_provider" />
</receiver>

And then we need some activity, with the MAIN and LAUNCHER set:

<activity android:name=".MainActivity"
          android:label="@string/app_name">
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />                
        <action android:name="net.thepurge.volumeprofiles.plus.VolumeProfilesWidget.ACTION_WIDGET_CONFIGURE"/>
    </intent-filter>
</activity>

As far as I can tell you MUST do this even if your widget is just supposed to be a pure widget with no associated activities. At the very least, make one dummy activity that launches a screen that says “Your widget is now ready for use! Look for it under widgets and drag it to your home screen!”

In my case, my widget launched an activity when you pushed it, so I made that activity into LAUNCHER/MAIN and just added a one-time popup dialog that basically says “you can run this as an application but you may want to use the widget instead”.

Note that on the 4.0 emulator, I was never getting my widget to show up on a first time install prior to this change. Simply having an activity set to MAIN and LAUNCHER seemed to be enough to make the widget show up.

More Related Contents:

  1. How to use a custom typeface in a widget?
  2. How to make a GridLayout fit screen size
  3. getView returning null when fragment has been created from an activity
  4. Is there an easy way to strike through text in an app widget?
  5. INSTALL_FAILED_UPDATE_INCOMPATIBLE when I try to install compiled .apk on device
  6. Determine addAction click for Android notifications
  7. How can I force the Action Bar to be at the bottom in ICS?
  8. Android – Get time of chronometer widget
  9. Hide ICS back home task switcher buttons
  10. How to use Holo.Light theme, and fall back to ‘Light’ on pre-honeycomb devices?
  11. TYPE_SYSTEM_OVERLAY in ICS
  12. Animation in Notification bar Custom View
  13. Easy way to hide system bar on Android ICS
  14. How to read and edit Android calendar events using the new Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich API?
  15. Processing more than one button click at Android Widget
  16. Broadcast receiver not working in ICS if the app is not started atleast once
  17. android 4.0, text on the action bar NEVER shows
  18. How to detect “Recent Apps” system button clicks (Honeycomb+)
  19. Widget not updated on launcher restart
  20. How do I change the background of an Android tab widget?
  21. Android – accordion widget
  22. Disable Home Button in Android ICS (4.0)
  23. Modifying the Android seekbar widget to operate vertically
  24. Is there a way to hide the system/navigation bar in Android ICS
  25. How to add button to notifications in android?
  26. How to programmatically create a new VPN interface with Android 4.0?
  27. Android app doesn’t call “onDestroy()” when killed (ICS)
  28. Android: How do I force the update of all widgets of a particular kind
  29. What are the default color values for the Holo theme on Android 4.0?
  30. Android BlurMaskFilter has no effect in canvas.drawOval while text is blurred

Leave a Comment