Sending Intent from widget into another app (Android)

I share my experiences, because not every developer is faced with the development of each and every features in Android.

One day I had the idea to add to my application a widget. But making it as a completely separate program.

What is it for? Well, suppose that you want to sell some parts of the application separately. Maybe it will be chat, calendar widget, weather widget, etc.

How to make a connection for a separate widget with the main application? In fact, without hesitation, comes to mind is elementary simple solution — using Intents, Receivers and Action.

And now I’ll show you how with minimum work time to connect separately developed widget to your application.

Create a widget from Android studio’s template. Something like this:

public class SomeWidget extends AppWidgetProvider {

    static void updateAppWidget(Context context, AppWidgetManager  
                                 appWidgetManager,int appWidgetId) {
        RemoteViews views = new                    
                       RemoteViews(context.getPackageName(), 
                                         R.layout.some_widget);

        appWidgetManager.updateAppWidget(appWidgetId, views);

    }

    @Override
    public void onUpdate(Context context, AppWidgetManager 
                             appWidgetManager, int[] appWidgetIds) {                                    
        for (int appWidgetId : appWidgetIds) {
            updateAppWidget(context, appWidgetManager, appWidgetId);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void onEnabled(Context context) {
    }

    @Override
    public void onDisabled(Context context) {
    }
}

A general template. Easy.

Now we make:

1. Add new element to main layout of our widget (R.layout.some_widget)
2. Assign ID to this element (no matter what it is, button, text box or image)
3. Because the widget is a Receiver, then we have to add the name of the Action and register it in the manifest in the tag <intent-filter> (the template is already done, but I advise you to make a new Action). Like this: com.example.myApp.SOME_BUTTON_PRESSED

Next, work with code. As an example I added a button (R.id.button):

public class SomeWidget extends AppWidgetProvider {

    static void updateAppWidget(Context context, AppWidgetManager  
                                 appWidgetManager,int appWidgetId) {
        RemoteViews views = new                    
                       RemoteViews(context.getPackageName(), 
                                         R.layout.some_widget);

Intent intent = new Intent();
        intent.setAction("com.example.myApp.SOME_BUTTON_PRESSED");

        PendingIntent pendingIntent =    
                      PendingIntent.getBroadcast(context,0, intent, 
                         PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);

        views.setOnClickPendingIntent(R.id.button, pendingIntent);

appWidgetManager.updateAppWidget(appWidgetId, views);
    }

    @Override
    public void onUpdate(Context context, AppWidgetManager 
                             appWidgetManager, int[] appWidgetIds) {                                    
        for (int appWidgetId : appWidgetIds) {
            updateAppWidget(context, appWidgetManager, appWidgetId);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void onEnabled(Context context) {
    }

    @Override
    public void onDisabled(Context context) {
    }
}

What we did:

1. Created an Intent and assign to it our Action
2. Wrapped our Intent in PendingIntent with flag FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT
3. Set onClickPendingIntent to our “button”.