How to create an app widget with a configuration activity, and update it for the first time?

Question

This is driving me crazy. I don\'t know how to update the app widget from the configuration activity, even with the recommended practises. Why the update method is not calle

Answer 1

The drawback of doing the update through the AppWidgetManager is that you have to provide the RemoteViews which - from a design point of view - doesn't make sense as the logic related to RemoteViews should be encapsulated within the AppWidgetProvider (or in your case in the RemoteViewsService.RemoteViewsFactory).

SciencyGuy's approach to expose the RemoteViews logic via a static method is one way to deal with that but there's a more elegant solution sending a broadcast directly to the widget:

Intent intent = new Intent(AppWidgetManager.ACTION_APPWIDGET_UPDATE, null, this, ChecksWidgetProvider.class);
intent.putExtra(AppWidgetManager.EXTRA_APPWIDGET_IDS, new int[] {mAppWidgetId});
sendBroadcast(intent);

As a consequence the AppWidgetProvider's onUpdate() method will be called to create the RemoteViews for the widget.