Setting two different labels for the Launcher and the first activity

Question

This should be a simple fix. My problem is that my launcher name is the same as my first activity. @string/app_name is my actual application name that I want it to show, but it is showing my first activity "Drafts" for the launcher. If I take out the @string/activity_drafts then the Launcher is correct, but then the first activity is my app_name which is not the behaviour I am looking for. I just want two seperate names for the launcher and the first activity's title and I'm not really sure what is going on here.

Manifest.xml

<application android:name="com.jordan.dictation.Dictation2Go"
    android:allowBackup="true"
    android:hardwareAccelerated="true"
    android:icon="@drawable/dp_launcher2"
    android:logo="@drawable/dp_white_logo"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:theme="@style/MyTheme">
    <activity
        android:name="com.jordan.dictation.Draft_Activity"
        android:screenOrientation="portrait"
        android:label="@string/activity_drafts"
        >
            <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
            <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
    </activity>

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:56

I am not sure how to do it in manifest file, however you can do it programmatically in your activity:

setTitle("Activity title");

or

getActionBar().setTitle("Activity title");

EDIT: GOT IT!

<application
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"            
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
        <activity
            android:name="com.example.so1.MainActivity"
            android:label="ACTIVITY NAME"
            >
            <intent-filter android:label="APP NAME">
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
    </application>

Note: Doing this might result in unexpected behavior upon device restart, e.g. with an unmodified Samsung S3, a shortcut on the home screen will be renamed to the activity's label. (See https://stackoverflow.com/a/7250902)

right... i did this too, but it doesn't look very professional, because when you enter the app for a split second it shows the launcher title and then changes to the activity title — Jordan Hochstetler, Sep 23 '13 at 20:53

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 24 '14 at 00:04

The icon and label set for an intent filter are used to represent a component whenever the component is presented to the user as fulfilling the function advertised by the filter. For example, a filter with " android.intent.action.MAIN " and " android.intent.category.LAUNCHER " settings advertises an activity as one that initiates an application — that is, as one that should be displayed in the application launcher. The icon and label set in the filter are therefore the ones displayed in the launcher.

Setting two different labels for the Launcher and the first activity

2 Answers2