How to use the Intent from chooser as a PendingIntent

Question

I want to use the CustomTabs library, where I need to add a share menu item. The library accepts only PendingIntent instance to be used as an Action for the menu item. I want to use the following code to make sure that the list is suggested to the user all the time without Just Once and Always buttons:

Intent shareIntent = Intent.createChooser(intent, "Choose the application to share.");

But the problem is now that if I use this chooser Intent to create a PendingIntent, the CustomTabs for Chrome doesn't fire up the Chooser for the user:

PendingIntent pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(context,
            requestCode,
            shareIntent,
            PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);

Is there a way to use the Chooser's Intent as a PendingIntent?

I can't use the following line to start the Intent, because the library is the one who is doing that and it only accepts PendingIntents:

startActivity(Intent.createChooser(i, getString()));

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 11 '17 at 17:23

You can achieve this by using broadcast receiever.

first create a custom broadcastreciever class to create chooser to share

ShareBroadcastReceiver.java

public class ShareBroadcastReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {

@Override
public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
    String url = intent.getDataString();
    if (url != null) {
        Intent shareIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
        shareIntent.setType("text/plain");
        shareIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT,context.getResources().getString(R.string.chromeextra)+ url);

        Intent chooserIntent = Intent.createChooser(shareIntent, "Share url");
        chooserIntent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);

        context.startActivity(chooserIntent);
    }
}

}

then set menu item in custom tabs builder class

  String shareLabel = getString(R.string.label_action_share);
Bitmap icon = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(),
        android.R.drawable.ic_menu_share);

//Create a PendingIntent to your BroadCastReceiver implementation
Intent actionIntent = new Intent(
        this.getApplicationContext(), ShareBroadcastReceiver.class);
PendingIntent pendingIntent = 
        PendingIntent.getBroadcast(getApplicationContext(), 0, actionIntent, 0);            

//Set the pendingIntent as the action to be performed when the button is clicked.            
intentBuilder.setActionButton(icon, shareLabel, pendingIntent);

Make sure you use an explicit broadcast...implicit broadcasts won't work correctly. — starkej2, Apr 03 '17 at 21:12
Also you need you declare your Broadcast receiver in AndroidManifest.xml, other-ways it wont work. — Markonioninioni, Nov 21 '17 at 00:28
@Markonionini Do you know why you need to add that to the Manifest? We are upgrading to Oreo and removed that in favor of doing a registerReceiver of our BroadcastReciever (to make it explicit) but the PendingIntent never got to the receiver. After adding that manifest line back in it worked. — C Nick, Jul 11 '18 at 20:49
@C Nick At this moment, I am not able to recall what is exact reason for that kind of behavior, I probably had the same experience as you or I read it somewhere. Anyways, I am glad to hear that my comment helped somebody. — Markonioninioni, Jul 15 '18 at 19:22

How to use the Intent from chooser as a PendingIntent

1 Answers1