How to launch an Activity without a UI?

Question

Is it in any way possible to launch an activity from the main function without having a UI? i.e. is there a way to create a sort of \"wrapper\" around another activity, i.e.

Answer 1

In your manifest, when you declare the activity, use theme "@android:style/Theme.Translucent.NoTitleBar"

Ex:

<activity android:name="yourActivityName" android:label="@string/app_name" android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Translucent.NoTitleBar">

Answer 2

I think this would help you a lot:

<activity  android:name = "MyActivity" 
          android:label = "@string/app_name" 
          android:theme = "@android:style/Theme.NoDisplay" >

Answer 3

If you are not interacting with the UI, what you are trying to do sounds more like an android service.

Answer 4

I had used moveTaskToBack(true) in onResume() to put the entire activity stack in background.

Answer 5

You need to add the Intent flag,

intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);

Or

call "finish();" after firing the intent.

Answer 6

Just in case you are using Android 6.0+ or Target SDK is 23+, having a theme android:theme = "@android:style/Theme.NoDisplay" will lead to a crash with error did not call finish() prior to onResume() completing. This in fact is a bug recognised by Google developers here.

So it is recommended to use an activity with following theme as a workaround.

android:theme = "@android:style/Theme.Translucent.NoTitleBar"