overriding the Home Key Long press in a category.HOME activity

Question

I just created my own \"Home\" to replace the stock android one or Sense.

All is working fine and I get all I want. My only problem is to replace to long press on ho

Answer 1

Everything I have ever read states that this can't be done... Here is a post on Android Beginners where I asked a very similar question:

http://groups.google.com/group/android-beginners/browse_thread/thread/d8cdcd1c52d79ef1/0f4b184da6f248a9?lnk=gst&q=home+key#0f4b184da6f248a9

However, I have recently come across an app that successfully allows you to launch it by double-tapping the home key so there has got to be something that can be done. I looked into that approach for a while but couldn't get it to work. Now that I know someone else figured it out I'm going to take another stab at it....

EDIT While overriding a long-press of the home button cannot be done, I have found a way to successfully implement a double-press of the home button. The general idea for this is as follows:

1. Make your app act as a home replacement app (Look at the sample home app in the SDK samples)
2. Allow a way in your app to specify a home app to use (it is pretty straightforward to present the user a list of home-replacement apps)
3. On the first press of the home button start a timer.
4. If the timer times out, launch the home application
5. If the user presses the home key a second time before the timer stops, launch your app

Essentially, the home-replacement activity does nothing more than either launch the real home app specified by the user or launch your app... It never displays its own UI.

I have found that this works pretty well, and actually have an app published in the Android Market that does this. If you would like to see it in action, it is called "Quick Launch" and the publisher name is listed as "MagouyaWare"

Hope this helps!