Can I add widgets from installed apps to my application activity

Question

I am trying develop an android application for a device (device is not a tablet or phone, its a preconfigured android board running Android 4.1.1)and one of the activity need to display a customized dashboard of several types of information as shown below

The types of information shown here is preconfigured. Instead of developing all these from scratch, I am planning to install apps that has widgets (like weather and calendar) and include widgets in my Layout.

I refered to the below links

Add widgets into my own application.- Android

http://www.anddev.org/appwidgethost_tutorial-t10329.html

I completed most of my code.

public class MainActivity extends Activity {


    private AppWidgetManager mAppWidgetManager;
    private AppWidgetHost mAppWidgetHost;
    static final int APPWIDGET_HOST_ID = 2037;
    private AppWidgetHostView widgets[] = new AppWidgetHostView[16];



    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        mAppWidgetManager = AppWidgetManager.getInstance(this);
        mAppWidgetHost = new AppWidgetHost(this, APPWIDGET_HOST_ID);

        setContentView(r.id.layout_main);


    ****here is where I am stuck??****
        int [] ids = AppWidgetManager.getInstance(context).getAppWidgetIds(name);


        mAppWidgetHost.startListening();

    }

But the place where I am stuck is, how do I specify widget manager to get the specific widget I want. Let us say I am interested in the widget "com.android.deskclock/com.android.alarmclock.AnalogAppWidgetProvider"

Please advice.

---

Update: I added the below code

 mAppWidgetManager = AppWidgetManager.getInstance(this);
        mAppWidgetHost = new AppWidgetHost(this, APPWIDGET_HOST_ID);
        int appWidgetId = mAppWidgetHost.allocateAppWidgetId();
        ComponentName name = new ComponentName("com.android.deskclock","com.android.alarmclock.AnalogAppWidgetProvider");

        int [] ids = mAppWidgetManager.getAppWidgetIds(name);

        if(ids != null && ids.length>0){
            System.err.println("Number of widget ids :"+ids.length);
            AppWidgetProviderInfo appWidgetInfo = mAppWidgetManager.getAppWidgetInfo(ids[0]);
            appWidgetId = ids[0];
            LinearLayout parent= (LinearLayout) findViewById(R.id.generalDashboardLayout);
            parent.addView(mAppWidgetHost.createView(this, appWidgetId, appWidgetInfo));
        }else{
            System.err.println("Ids is null");
        }

It always prints "Ids is null" It is not finding the widget to add to my view

Please help

Answer 1

Finally I solved the issue by using the below code

mAppWidgetManager = AppWidgetManager.getInstance(this);
        mAppWidgetHost = new AppWidgetHost(this, APPWIDGET_HOST_ID);
        int appWidgetId = mAppWidgetHost.allocateAppWidgetId();
        ComponentName name = new ComponentName("com.android.deskclock","com.android.alarmclock.AnalogAppWidgetProvider");

        int [] ids = mAppWidgetManager.getAppWidgetIds(name);

        if(ids != null && ids.length>0){
            System.err.println("Number of widget ids :"+ids.length);
            AppWidgetProviderInfo appWidgetInfo = mAppWidgetManager.getAppWidgetInfo(ids[0]);
            appWidgetId = ids[0];
            LinearLayout parent= (LinearLayout) findViewById(R.id.generalDashboardLayout);
            parent.addView(mAppWidgetHost.createView(this, appWidgetId, appWidgetInfo));
        }else{
            System.err.println("Ids is null");
        }

Answer 2

Yes you can. You need to make use of AppWidgetHost class, just like all the Home Screen applications does.

Here's a source code home screen app that you can use to learn how to use it. http://code.google.com/p/android-launcher-plus/