And btw, a significant number of things you can do with the applications are documented in the Intent class as generic protocols (such as VIEW or GET_CONTENT) along with the various MIME types and URIs defined by the standard content providers in android.provider.
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 2:29 PM, Dianne Hackborn <[email protected]>wrote: > I'll still say, if it hasn't been documented, then you probably have no > business using it. > > If you want to go use private implementation details of the platform, you > can browse through the source code and look at the manifests of the apps. > That is all that the system knows about the intent protocols they support. > > > On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 1:07 PM, jarkman <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> I understand the point about trying to stick to intents which have >> been documented by their developers. >> >> The problem is, even a well-intentioned but busy developer may simply >> not get round to writing that documentation. The system applications >> are a great example of that effect. >> >> At least, with a discovery API, we could find out what the things were >> in some reliable way. We'd also have a better chance of understanding >> why our intents failed when they did. Right now, I sometimes feel like >> I'm on a random hunt for a magic string. It is the single most >> frustrating thing about developing for Android. >> >> Do you think there's any chance one will appear in a future version ? >> >> Or, can you think of any way to acheive the effect in the current >> version ? I had a vague idea about feeding generalities to >> PackageManager.queryIntentActivities(), but I have not found a way to >> make that work. >> >> Thanks, >> >> Richard >> >> >> >> >> On Jan 30, 8:31 pm, Dianne Hackborn <[email protected]> wrote: >> > You shouldn't just look at what intents an app happens to use: unless >> > someone publishes official protocols, those should be considered >> private. >> > Unless an app developer is explicitly maintaining them, they could >> change >> > their app arbitrarily and break someone using those implementation >> details. >> > >> > And Amazon MP3 app is owned by amazon, who just happened to have it >> > installed on the G1. It is not part of the platform, and so they would >> need >> > to document and maintain whatever intent protocols they want to publish. >> > >> > Finally, yes, we need to do a better job at defining official protocols >> for >> > the system applications. This is something that got dropped in the push >> to >> > get the initial full product out. >> > >> > >> > >> > On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 11:48 AM, jarkman <[email protected]> wrote: >> > >> > > Peter - I agree completely. OpenIntents is a great idea, but it >> > > doesn't fix my problem either. >> > >> > > The strangeness is not just limited to the lack of a discovery API. >> > > There's also a peculiar lack of documentation on what the built-in >> > > apps can do, leaving us wasting a lot of time poking about making up >> > > intents by experiment. >> > >> > > My hope is that both of these - intent discovery APIs and better docs >> > > on the existing intents - are in the plan, just not done yet. >> > >> > > Richard >> > >> > > On Jan 30, 5:29 pm, Peter Jeffe <[email protected]> wrote: >> > > > On Jan 30, 10:45 am, Peli <[email protected]> wrote: >> > >> > > > > For this reason, we have created the OpenIntents intents registry: >> > > >> http://www.openintents.org/en/http://www.openintents.org/en/intentstable >> > >> > > > > Even if there is a way to find all intents supported by an >> > > > > application, this will not tell you what kind of extras are >> supported >> > > > > or required or which result (if at all) is returned. >> > >> > > > I think your site is great Peli, I agree with your reasoning and >> > > > applaud your efforts. Unfortunately in this case I'm interested in >> > > > invoking the Amazon MP3 app, and no one has registered it on >> > > > OpenIntents, so I was trying to discover anything I could about it. >> > >> > > > I think it is very strange that Android has this nice concept of >> apps >> > > > registering the services that they provide, but there's no means for >> > > > other apps to discover what services are provided. Is it just me, >> or >> > > > does anyone else think this really limits the usefulness of this >> > > > feature? >> > >> > > > -- Peter >> > >> > -- >> > Dianne Hackborn >> > Android framework engineer >> > [email protected] >> > >> > Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to >> > provide private support. All such questions should be posted on public >> > forums, where I and others can see and answer them. >> >> >> > > > -- > Dianne Hackborn > Android framework engineer > [email protected] > > > Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to > provide private support. All such questions should be posted on public > forums, where I and others can see and answer them. > > -- Dianne Hackborn Android framework engineer [email protected] Note: please don't send private questions to me, as I don't have time to provide private support. All such questions should be posted on public forums, where I and others can see and answer them. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. 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