I\'m creating an appwidget, where the user should be able to configure it before it is added to the home screen. To me, PreferenceScreen/PreferenceActivity seems perfect for the
commonsWare: https://github.com/commonsguy/cw-advandroid/blob/master/AppWidget/LoremWidget/res/xml/widget_provider.xml your example does not use a config-activity at all and thus certainly no PreferencesActivity.
As far as PreferencesActivities go, it does NOT work to setResult(RESULT_CANCELED); in onCreate(9 and then setResult(...) in onBackPressed. There are wired NullPointerExceptions deep in Launcher.java (line 88X). However it does work do Provider.updateAppWidget() and setResult(RESULT_OK, resultValue); in onCreate and then handle further updates in onBackPressed.
The following snipped may help too:
onCreate() {
CheckBoxPreference dark = (CheckBoxPreference)findPreference("xyz");
dark.setChecked(false);
...
onBackPressed() {
CheckBoxPreference dark = (CheckBoxPreference)findPreference("xyz");
boolean checked = dark.isChecked();
...