Android - How To Override the “Back” button so it doesn't Finish() my Activity?

Question

I currently have an Activity that when it gets displayed a Notification will also get displayed in the Notification bar.

This is so that when the User presses home a

Answer 1

I think what you want is not to override the back button (that just doesn't seem like a good idea - Android OS defines that behavior, why change it?), but to use the Activity Lifecycle and persist your settings/data in the onSaveInstanceState(Bundle) event.

@Override
onSaveInstanceState(Bundle frozenState) {
    frozenState.putSerializable("object_key",
        someSerializableClassYouWantToPersist);
    // etc. until you have everything important stored in the bundle
}

Then you use onCreate(Bundle) to get everything out of that persisted bundle and recreate your state.

@Override
onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    if(savedInstanceState!=null){ //It could be null if starting the app.
        mCustomObject = savedInstanceState.getSerializable("object_key");
    }
    // etc. until you have reloaded everything you stored
}

Consider the above psuedo-code to point you in the right direction. Reading up on the Activity Lifecycle should help you determine the best way to accomplish what you're looking for.