Manually pause an application in Android Phonegap

Question

Would it be possible to pause an Android PhoneGap application manually? I need to pause the application and go to background when somebody click a button. I used navigator.app.exitApp(); but it completely closes the application. I do not want to close the application just unload just like is done with the native back button. Please help, thanks.

What do you mean with pause? Maybe have a look at the Activites Lifecircle cause I'm not sure what you try to achieve :) http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/fundamentals/activities.html — nuala, May 11 '12 at 10:20
I need to pause/stop the activity( The app should not be visible in forground) and app should not be visible like when we click native back button, it will hide the app. — Sarath DR, May 11 '12 at 10:49
Basically you want the same behaviour as if someone pressed the Home button correct? — Simon MacDonald, May 11 '12 at 13:54
Has anyone came up with a solution for this? Is there a function within Phonegap to do just this?? — Chris, Oct 02 '12 at 13:59

Lucidity · Answer 1 · 2014-09-27T14:09:39.337

Here's a solution which is similar to Joram Teusink's answer, but easier because you don't need to manually edit java code - just install a plugin with the phonegap / cordova CLI.

The plugin one function: goHome(). If you call this, the app will pause - just like pressing the home button.

Usage:

navigator.Backbutton.goHome(function() {
  console.log('success - the app will now pause')
}, function() {
  console.log('fail')
});

Installation:

phonegap local plugin add https://github.com/mohamed-salah/phonegap-backbutton-plugin.git

Here's the github page:

https://github.com/mohamed-salah/phonegap-backbutton-plugin.git

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 27 '16 at 00:08

In your Javascript:

// HomeButton
cordova.define("cordova/plugin/homebutton", function (require, exports, module) {
    var exec = require("cordova/exec");
    module.exports = {
        show: function (win, fail) {
            exec(win, fail, "HomeButton", "show", []);
        }
    };
});

And:

// HomeButton
function homeButton() {
    var home = cordova.require("cordova/plugin/homebutton");
    home.show(
        function () {
            console.info("PhoneGap Plugin: HomeButton: callback success");
        },
        function () {
            console.error("PhoneGap Plugin: HomeButton: callback error");
        }
    );
}

In Java on Android Native:

package org.apache.cordova.plugins;

import org.apache.cordova.api.CallbackContext;
import org.apache.cordova.api.CordovaPlugin;
import org.apache.cordova.api.PluginResult;
import org.json.JSONArray;

import android.content.Intent;
import android.util.Log;

public class HomeButton extends CordovaPlugin {

    public static final String LOG_PROV = "PhoneGapLog";
    public static final String LOG_NAME = "HomeButton Plugin";

    @Override
    public boolean execute(String action, JSONArray args, CallbackContext callbackContext) {
        Log.d(LOG_PROV, LOG_NAME + ": Simulated home button.");
        Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_MAIN);
        i.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_HOME);
        this.cordova.startActivityForResult(this, i, 0);
        callbackContext.sendPluginResult(new PluginResult(PluginResult.Status.OK));
        return true;
    }

}

Call it with:

homeButton();

It works, and is part of a repo of mine: https://github.com/teusinkorg/jpHolo/

Manually pause an application in Android Phonegap

2 Answers2

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