AppWidgetManager.getAppWidgetIds in activity returns an empty list

Question

I have an appwidget that I\'m trying to update from an activity.

To do that, I need the appwidget id.

I\'ve used AppWidgetManager.getAppWidgetIds bu

Answer 1

I'm working on something similar and here is the simplest way I got it to work.

In your service class put this wherever you want to trigger a widget update:

Intent brIntent = new Intent(AppWidgetManager.ACTION_APPWIDGET_UPDATE);
sendBroadcast(brIntent);

This will cause the onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) method in your AppWidgetProvider class to be called. Then onRecieve can call code to update the widget. For a sample, here's what I used. I'm merely updating the text of the widget:

        //Sample output text
    String text = "My cat's name is wiggles.";
    //get an AppWidgetManager
    AppWidgetManager appWidgetManager = AppWidgetManager.getInstance(context);
    //getComponentName
    ComponentName thisWidget = new ComponentName(context, MyWidgetProvider.class);
    //get the IDs for all the instances of this widget
    int[] allWidgetIds = appWidgetManager.getAppWidgetIds(thisWidget);
    //update all of the widgets
    for (int widgetId : allWidgetIds) {
        //get any views in this instance of the widget
        RemoteViews remoteViews = new RemoteViews(context.getPackageName(), R.layout.widget_layout);
        // Set the text
        remoteViews.setTextViewText(R.id.widgetField,  text);
        //update the widget with any change we just made
        appWidgetManager.updateAppWidget(widgetId, remoteViews);
    }