Check if app is in forground or background for notifications

Question

I need to check if the app is foreground or background to display incoming notifications either in the tray or in the app. Currently I have done it using RunningTaskInfo but this requires the permission of: android.permission.GET_TASKS which is deprecated. Any help is much appreciated!

My current method of checking

 public static boolean isAppIsInBackground(Context context) {
    boolean isInBackground = true;
    ActivityManager am = (ActivityManager) context.getSystemService(Context.ACTIVITY_SERVICE);
    if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT > Build.VERSION_CODES.KITKAT_WATCH) {
        List<ActivityManager.RunningAppProcessInfo> runningProcesses = am.getRunningAppProcesses();
        for (ActivityManager.RunningAppProcessInfo processInfo : runningProcesses) {
            if (processInfo.importance == ActivityManager.RunningAppProcessInfo.IMPORTANCE_FOREGROUND) {
                for (String activeProcess : processInfo.pkgList) {
                    if (activeProcess.equals(context.getPackageName())) {
                        isInBackground = false;
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    } else {
        List<ActivityManager.RunningTaskInfo> taskInfo = am.getRunningTasks(1);
        ComponentName componentInfo = taskInfo.get(0).topActivity;
        if (componentInfo.getPackageName().equals(context.getPackageName())) {
            isInBackground = false;
        }
    }

    return isInBackground;
}

EDIT - The solution

So this is the solution I ended up going with. Thanks to /u/Dima Kozhevin for pointing me to the right post. This is the post: How to detect when an Android app goes to the background and come back to the foreground which I ended up modifying a little. The code I added is to check whether the screen is on or not. I did it the following way:

@Override
public void onActivityPaused(Activity activity) {
    PowerManager pm = (PowerManager) activity.getSystemService(Context.POWER_SERVICE);
    if (!isInBackground) {
        if (!pm.isScreenOn()) {
            isInBackground = true;
            Log.e(TAG, "app went to background");
        }
    }
}

I ran this solution on 3 different devices which all ended up working. If anyone finds anything that ends up breaking this, please let me know!

I've found multiple solutions similar to this, using onResume or things like that but wouldn't that mean I would need to add a check for each of my activities? — CrimzonWeb, Jul 04 '18 at 12:20
I'm using this solution https://stackoverflow.com/a/30598089/3166697 — Dima Kozhevin, Jul 04 '18 at 12:29
It half works. I can get into situations where it does not update but it gets me closer. For example If I turn off the screen the app should switch to background but I'm guessing I have other ways to check for that. — CrimzonWeb, Jul 04 '18 at 13:50

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 04 '18 at 11:51

I'm currently using this code to check if my app is running. It works perfectly here. Just copy/paste this code:

public static boolean isAppRunning(final Context context) {
    final ActivityManager activityManager = (ActivityManager) context.getSystemService(Context.ACTIVITY_SERVICE);
    final List<ActivityManager.RunningAppProcessInfo> procInfos = activityManager.getRunningAppProcesses();
    if (procInfos != null) {
        for (final ActivityManager.RunningAppProcessInfo processInfo : procInfos) {
            if (processInfo.processName.equals(BuildConfig.APPLICATION_ID)) {
                return true;
            }
        }
    }
    return false;
}

What I'm doing here? I'm just searching on all active apps process and check if there is a process with the same Name as my app name. Note that the process name is the package name, so it is checking fine. Try it.

Wouldn't this solution mean that for example when I open my app, close it and then open a different one it would still count as my app being in foreground cause you are only searching if the app shows up in all active apps process list? — CrimzonWeb, Jul 04 '18 at 12:19
Yah. Every time that your app is opened, if you call this method, your app will be closed — Pedro Massango, Jul 04 '18 at 18:54

Check if app is in forground or background for notifications

1 Answers1