Hi all.
We would like to enable or disable widgets via code. When we say
"disable" we mean that a widget which is registered in an application
should not show up in the list of widgets available to the user when
they try to add a widget to their home screen.
This question has been asked, unfortunately, many times without
answer. There was one response by Dianne Hackborn to a separate
widget question which suggested that it was possible to use the
package manager to disable widgets:
PackageManager pm = context.getPackageManager();
pm.setComponentEnabledSetting(new ComponentName(
"com.example.android.apis",
".appwidget.ExampleBroadcastReceiver"),
PackageManager.COMPONENT_ENABLED_STATE_ENABLED, // or DISABLED
PackageManager.DONT_KILL_APP);
This, however, does not work. The widget component will still appear
in the list of widgets. It may be that the AppWidgetService (located
in the Android source's Base.git at \src\base\services\java\com\android
\server), which loads the list of available widgets, caches this list
of available widgets. If that were the case, though, then the above
code which enables or disables the widget component would work after a
device reset because there would be no cache; it does not.
I have also tried looking into overriding some methods of the
AppWidgetProvider, such as filtering out any events. I don't think
this will go anywhere, because the AppWidgetService, which populates
the list, uses the Package Manager to find all components which catch
the ACTION_APPWIDGET_UPDATE action on startup and when a package is
added (i.e. a new app is installed). The only time that a provider is
removed from this list is on a ACTION_PACKAGE_REMOVED broadcast.
So given that the providers will always be there, regardless of the
enabled/disabled state of the component, I have looked into the actual
list activity which is shown from the Launcher app when the user long-
clicks the desktop and adds a widget: AppWidgetPickActivity in
Settings.GIT in
com.android.settings. This, unfortunately, populates the list
directly from the AppWidgetService, without any filtering for the
component's enabled status:
void putInstalledAppWidgets(List<PickAdapter.Item> items) {
List<AppWidgetProviderInfo> installed =
mAppWidgetManager.getInstalledProviders();
putAppWidgetItems(installed, null, items);
}
I would love to see if anyone has overcome this hurdle. Perhaps I am
going about it the wrong way. All I want is to be able to remove a
widget from the list of widgets available to the user when they try to
add a widget to their home screen.
Thanks,
-Matt
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