Differentiating between an Activity launch from home screen or from another activity from App

Question

I need to know a generic way to distinguish between a call of activity from launcher and a call from another activity from inside my app, or a BACK on the activity stack

Answer 1

Here's convenience method so you don't need to write it yourself:

protected boolean isStartedByLauncher() {
    if (getIntent() == null) {
        return false;
    }
    boolean isActionMain = Intent.ACTION_MAIN.equals(getIntent().getAction());
    Set<String> categories = getIntent().getCategories();
    boolean isCategoryLauncher = categories != null && categories.contains(Intent.CATEGORY_LAUNCHER);
    return isActionMain && isCategoryLauncher;
}