How can I tell if Android app is running in the foreground?

I am doing a status bar notification in my android app that is triggered by c2dm. I don't want to display the notification if the app is running. How do you determine if the app is running and is in the foreground?

Solution 1:

Alternately, you can check with the ActivityManager what tasks are running by getRunningTasks method. Then check with the first task(task in the foreground) in the returned List of tasks, if it is your task.
Here is the code example:

public Notification buildNotification(String arg0, Map<String, String> arg1) {

    ActivityManager activityManager = (ActivityManager) appContext.getSystemService(Context.ACTIVITY_SERVICE);
    List<RunningTaskInfo> services = activityManager
            .getRunningTasks(Integer.MAX_VALUE);
    boolean isActivityFound = false;

    if (services.get(0).topActivity.getPackageName().toString()
            .equalsIgnoreCase(appContext.getPackageName().toString())) {
        isActivityFound = true;
    }

    if (isActivityFound) {
        return null;
    } else {
        // write your code to build a notification.
        // return the notification you built here
    }

}

And don't forget to add the GET_TASKS permission in the manifest.xml file in order to be able to run getRunningTasks() method in the above code:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.GET_TASKS" />

p/s : If agree this way, please to note that this permission now is deprecated.

Solution 2:

Make a global variable like private boolean mIsInForegroundMode; and assign a false value in onPause() and a true value in onResume().

Sample code:

private boolean mIsInForegroundMode;

@Override
protected void onPause() {
    super.onPause();
    mIsInForegroundMode = false;
}

@Override
protected void onResume() {
    super.onResume();
    mIsInForegroundMode = true;
}

// Some function.
public boolean isInForeground() {
    return mIsInForegroundMode;
}

Solution 3:

This is a pretty old post but still quite relevant. The above accepted solution may work but is wrong. As Dianne Hackborn wrote:

These APIs are not there for applications to base their UI flow on, but to do things like show the user the running apps, or a task manager, or such.

Yes there is a list kept in memory for these things. However, it is off in another process, managed by threads running separately from yours, and not something you can count on (a) seeing in time to make the correct decision or (b) have a consistent picture by the time you return. Plus the decision about what the "next" activity to go to is always done at the point where the switch is to happen, and it is not until that exact point (where the activity state is briefly locked down to do the switch) that we actually know for such what the next thing will be.

And the implementation and global behavior here is not guaranteed to remain the same in the future.

The correct solution is to implement : ActivityLifeCycleCallbacks.

This basically needs an Application Class and the handler can be set in there to identify the state of your activities in the app.

Solution 4:

As Vinay says, probably the best solution (to support newer android versions, 14+) is to use ActivityLifecycleCallbacks in the Application class implementation.

package com.telcel.contenedor.appdelegate;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.app.Application.ActivityLifecycleCallbacks;
import android.os.Bundle;

/** Determines global app lifecycle states. 
 * 
 * The following is the reference of activities states:
 * 
 * The <b>visible</b> lifetime of an activity happens between a call to onStart()
 * until a corresponding call to onStop(). During this time the user can see the
 * activity on-screen, though it may not be in the foreground and interacting with 
 * the user. The onStart() and onStop() methods can be called multiple times, as 
 * the activity becomes visible and hidden to the user.
 * 
 * The <b>foreground</b> lifetime of an activity happens between a call to onResume()
 * until a corresponding call to onPause(). During this time the activity is in front
 * of all other activities and interacting with the user. An activity can frequently
 * go between the resumed and paused states -- for example when the device goes to
 * sleep, when an activity result is delivered, when a new intent is delivered -- 
 * so the code in these methods should be fairly lightweight. 
 * 
 * */
public class ApplicationLifecycleManager implements ActivityLifecycleCallbacks {

    /** Manages the state of opened vs closed activities, should be 0 or 1. 
     * It will be 2 if this value is checked between activity B onStart() and
     * activity A onStop().
     * It could be greater if the top activities are not fullscreen or have
     * transparent backgrounds.
     */
    private static int visibleActivityCount = 0;

    /** Manages the state of opened vs closed activities, should be 0 or 1
     * because only one can be in foreground at a time. It will be 2 if this 
     * value is checked between activity B onResume() and activity A onPause().
     */
    private static int foregroundActivityCount = 0;

    /** Returns true if app has foreground */
    public static boolean isAppInForeground(){
        return foregroundActivityCount > 0;
    }

    /** Returns true if any activity of app is visible (or device is sleep when
     * an activity was visible) */
    public static boolean isAppVisible(){
        return visibleActivityCount > 0;
    }

    public void onActivityCreated(Activity activity, Bundle bundle) {
    }

    public void onActivityDestroyed(Activity activity) {
    }

    public void onActivityResumed(Activity activity) {
        foregroundActivityCount ++;
    }

    public void onActivityPaused(Activity activity) {
        foregroundActivityCount --;
    }


    public void onActivitySaveInstanceState(Activity activity, Bundle outState) {
    }

    public void onActivityStarted(Activity activity) {
        visibleActivityCount ++;
    }

    public void onActivityStopped(Activity activity) {
        visibleActivityCount --;
    }
}

And in Application onCreate() method:

registerActivityLifecycleCallbacks(new ApplicationLifecycleManager());

Then ApplicationLifecycleManager.isAppVisible() or ApplicationLifecycleManager.isAppInForeground() would be used to know the desired state.

Solution 5:

Since API 16 you can do it like this:

static boolean shouldShowNotification(Context context) {
    RunningAppProcessInfo myProcess = new RunningAppProcessInfo();
    ActivityManager.getMyMemoryState(myProcess);
    if (myProcess.importance != RunningAppProcessInfo.IMPORTANCE_FOREGROUND)
        return true;

    KeyguardManager km = (KeyguardManager) context.getSystemService(Context.KEYGUARD_SERVICE);
    // app is in foreground, but if screen is locked show notification anyway
    return km.inKeyguardRestrictedInputMode();
}