How can I manage audio volumes sanely in my Android app?

Question

I have an app that plays intermittent sounds while its activity is open, and the user is always expecting it to make these noises, but unfortunately it is constrained by the

Answer 1

Got another suggestion via Google Groups that is the platform integrated solution I was looking for and works fine:

Please don't handle the volume keys yourself - it is almost impossible to guarantee that you won't break the behavior of the volume keys.

Call this API in your onCreate():

setVolumeControlStream(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC);

This tells the AudioManager that when your application has focus, the volume keys should adjust music volume.