Getting the time for each application spent in the foreground in Android

Question

I'm trying to get the time when the application is in the foreground and I want to use Service while doing this because it needs to run in the background all the time.

This is my main activity

import android.content.Intent;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
    }

    public void startService(View view) {
        Intent intent = new Intent(this, appTracker.class);
        startService(intent);
    }

    public void stopService(View view) {
        Intent intent = new Intent(this, appTracker.class);
        stopService(intent);
    }
}

And this is the service activity that I will use for this job.

import android.app.Service;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.IBinder;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class appTracker extends Service {

    @Override
    public void onCreate() {
        super.onCreate();
    }

    @Override
    public int onStartCommand(Intent intent, int flags, int startId) {
        Toast.makeText(this, "App Track Starting...", Toast.LENGTH_LONG);

        //should I implement this here?
        UsageStats usageStats;
        String PackageName = "Nothing";

        long TimeInforground = 500;

        int minutes = 500, seconds = 500, hours = 500;
        UsageStatsManager mUsageStatsManager = (UsageStatsManager)getSystemService("usagestats");     

        long time = System.currentTimeMillis(); 

        List<UsageStats> stats = mUsageStatsManager.queryUsageStats(UsageStatsManager.INTERVAL_DAILY,
            time - 1000 * 10, time); 

        if (stats != null) {
            SortedMap<Long, UsageStats> mySortedMap = new TreeMap<Long, UsageStats>();
            for (UsageStats usageStats : stats) {
                TimeInforground = usageStats.getTotalTimeInForeground();
                PackageName = usageStats.getPackageName();

                minutes = (int)((TimeInforground / (1000 * 60)) % 60);
                seconds = (int)(TimeInforground / 1000) % 60 ;
                hours   = (int)((TimeInforground / (1000 * 60 * 60)) % 24);

                Log.i("BAC", "PackageName is" + PackageName + "Time is: "
                    + hours + "h" + ":" + minutes + "m" + seconds + "s");
            }
        return START_STICKY;
    }

    @Override
    public void onDestroy() {
        super.onDestroy();
    }

    @Override
    public IBinder onBind(Intent intent) {
        return null;
    }
}

My question is should I implement the code that will get the time for every application in onStartCommand method or somewhere else? Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Application in foreground state means that one of your activities is currently visible to the user

I will go creating a new base Activity like this

public class BaseActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
    ....
    @Override
    public void onResume(){
        //app is showing, start the timer
    }

    @Override
    public void onPause(){
        //app is going to background or an activity switch is occuring, pause the timer
    }
}

Then every Activity you have in the app could extends this BaseActivity

public class MainActivity extends BaseActivity {
    ...
}

Now you need to save the timer property in the SharedPref or somewhere else based on the calculations you need.

BTW: This implementation needs a good understanding of the Android framework so if you are not really familiar with that i will go with some other options.