Determine if Android app is being used for the first time

Question

I am currently developing an android app. I need to do something when the app is launched for the first time, i.e. the code only runs on the first time the program is launch

Answer 1

Another idea is to use a setting in the Shared Preferences. Same general idea as checking for an empty file, but then you don't have an empty file floating around, not being used to store anything

Answer 2

Here's some code for this -

String path = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().getAbsolutePath() +
                    "/Android/data/myapp/files/myfile.txt";

boolean exists = (new File(path)).exists(); 

if (!exists) {
    doSomething();                                      
}
else {
    doSomethingElse();
}

Answer 3

Why not use the Database Helper ? This will have a nice onCreate which is only called the first time the app is started. This will help those people who want to track this after there initial app has been installed without tracking.

Answer 4

    /**
     * @author ALGO
     */
    import java.io.File;
    import java.io.FileOutputStream;
    import java.io.IOException;
    import java.io.RandomAccessFile;
    import java.util.UUID;

    import android.content.Context;

    public class Util {
        // ===========================================================
        //
        // ===========================================================

        private static final String INSTALLATION = "INSTALLATION";

        public synchronized static boolean isFirstLaunch(Context context) {
            String sID = null;
            boolean launchFlag = false;
            if (sID == null) {
                File installation = new File(context.getFilesDir(), INSTALLATION);
                try {
                    if (!installation.exists()) {

                        writeInstallationFile(installation);
                    }
                    sID = readInstallationFile(installation);
launchFlag = true;
                } catch (Exception e) {
                    throw new RuntimeException(e);
                }
            }
            return launchFlag;
        }

        private static String readInstallationFile(File installation) throws IOException {
            RandomAccessFile f = new RandomAccessFile(installation, "r");// read only mode
            byte[] bytes = new byte[(int) f.length()];
            f.readFully(bytes);
            f.close();

            return new String(bytes);
        }

        private static void writeInstallationFile(File installation) throws IOException {
            FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(installation);
            String id = UUID.randomUUID().toString();
            out.write(id.getBytes());
            out.close();
        }
    }

> Usage (in class extending android.app.Activity)

Util.isFirstLaunch(this);

Answer 5

You can use the SharedPreferences to identify if it is the "First time" the app is launched. Just use a Boolean variable ("my_first_time") and change its value to false when your task for "first time" is over.

This is my code to catch the first time you open the app:

final String PREFS_NAME = "MyPrefsFile";

SharedPreferences settings = getSharedPreferences(PREFS_NAME, 0);

if (settings.getBoolean("my_first_time", true)) {
    //the app is being launched for first time, do something        
    Log.d("Comments", "First time");

             // first time task

    // record the fact that the app has been started at least once
    settings.edit().putBoolean("my_first_time", false).commit(); 
}

Answer 6

There is support for just this in the support library revision 23.3.0 (in the v4 which means compability back to Android 1.6).

In your Launcher activity, first call:

AppLaunchChecker.onActivityCreate(activity);

Then call:

AppLaunchChecker.hasStartedFromLauncher(activity);

Which will return if this was the first time the app was launched.