I feel that the lifecycle (of apps and activities) is not well documented. I wish the Javadocs were somehow wikified so the vague portions could be collaboratively identified and remedied. I only feel I am able to identify places where questions arise, so having the ability through OSP (I suppose) to edit these is not such a boon.
My app has longstanding bugs that some phones see and others do not, and they tie into lifecycle issues. Here are some of the questions I find I still have. The Activity documentation does not clearly indicate the difference between an activity being paused versus being stopped. Is a paused activity one which has 1 or more pixels obscured by another, and a stopped activity one that has zero visible pixels? I have never found just where the the interrelationships between finish() and state diagram paths toward pause/stop and the use of the back button or home button are detailed. Shouldn't "finish()" have been called "destroy()" so it is consistent with the state diagram? If so, the documentation should spell out how finish()ing an activity will start it through the path to onDestroy(). There seems to be no direct means by which my app (or do I mean my task?) can know when one of its activities is active versus not. This has confused me for one and a half years (it matters when you make an app that has a voice user interface and want the recognition to be stopped when the user presses home, but not when he presses "back" on an activity that returns another of your app's activities to the fore). It gets worse in that starting a new activity does not deliver you an Activity instance immediately, making instance counting difficult. I have resisted using the manifest flags for "singletop" et al entirely, as several readings of their description have not conveyed a clear understanding. tone -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
