Communication between Android Services and Activities

Question

I want to develop an Android App with three activities and two services.

The first Service, named WebClientService, calls a REST API every 30 seconds, using an Handler, and has to notify the active Activity with the result. It also has to notify a second Service, named DatabaseService, in order to update a local DB.

The Database Service will be called just once onCreate of the activity (in case of app crash and restart) and just once at onRestart (in this way we have data to show in case there were connectivity issues). The activities will then keep themselves updated thanks to the WebClientService that notifies the "alive" activity every 30 seconds.

Questions are:

• What's the best way to notify for an update both the active activity and the background DatabaseService? My idea is to use sendBroadcast() within WebClientService and a BroadcastReceiver in every activity and within the DatabaseService, is it the right approach?

• Should I use the same approach for the communication between AllMeetingRoomActivity and DatabaseService or should I use a Bound Service?

Thanks

UPDATE: DatabaseService won't be a background service anymore but just a shared instance of the db layer between WebClientService and the activities.

So question now is: is it a good approach to just write my 30 seconds updates to the local db and allow the activities to update themselves every few seconds simply reading from the local db? Would that affect the performance too much?

Context:

Follows what I've implemented so far but using SettableFutures and thus needs to be re-implemented using Services and Broadcasts once I've clear how to make them communicate effectively:

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {               

    private TextView meetingsTextView;
    private EditText mEdit, editSubject;

    private final ConnectorInitializer clientInitializer = new ConnectorInitializer();
    private AppConnector genericClient; // can use OutlookClient or a test client to talk with a mock server

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

        // initializes client based on the settings in "config.json"
        genericClient = clientInitializer.create(this);

        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        meetingsTextView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.NowMeeting);
        mEdit   = (EditText)findViewById(R.id.editText);
        editSubject   = (EditText)findViewById(R.id.editSubject);

        Futures.addCallback(genericClient.logon(this, scopes), new FutureCallback<Boolean>() {
            @Override
            public void onSuccess(Boolean result) {
                Log.d("APP", "-- Logged in. --");

                databaseConnector.synchronouslyGetBackupFromLocalDatabase() // FUTURE
                // callback here
                // onSuccess, onFailure

            }

            @Override
            public void onFailure(@NonNull Throwable t) {
                Log.e("\n ~~~~>> logon \n", t.getMessage());
                meetingsTextView.setText(R.string.Login_Failed);
            }
        });

    }

    /** At the moment the UI is not updated automatically every 30 seconds
    *   but manually using a refresh button
    */
    public void getBookings(@SuppressWarnings("UnusedParameters") View view){

        Log.d("APP", "Retrieve button clicked: "+(DateTime.now())+". Calling async getCalendar.");
        meetingsTextView.setText(R.string.retrieving_events);

        try{
            Futures.addCallback( genericClient.getCalendarEvents(), new FutureCallback<String>(){
                @Override
                public void onSuccess(final String resultCalendars) {

                    Log.d("APP", "Success. Result: "+resultCalendars);

                    runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
                        @Override
                        public void run() {

                            Log.d("APP", "Calendars SUCCESSFULLY retrieved.");
                            String meetingsRetrieved = getString(R.string.calendar)+resultCalendars;
                            meetingsTextView.setText(meetingsRetrieved);

                            Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "Success!", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
                        }
                    });

                    databaseConnector.asyncUpdateLocalDbWithResults(); // FUTURE
                    // callback here
                    // onSuccess, onFailure

               }

                @Override
                public void onFailure(@NonNull Throwable t) {
                    Log.e( "APP", "Calendar error. Cause: "+t.getLocalizedMessage() );
                    String retrieveError = "Retrieve error. \n\n\n"+t.getLocalizedMessage();
                    meetingsTextView.setText(retrieveError);
                    Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "Fail!", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
                }
            });

        }catch(Exception ex){    
            Log.e("APP","Something went wrong in your code. Cause:"+ex);
        }
    }

Answer 1

I think your approach is ok with BroadCastReceiver. However, BroadCastReceiver should be used for a global purpose (like communicating between 2 applications). If you intend to use BroadCastReceiver for your app only, I prefer using LocalBroadcastManager instead. Using LocalBroadcastManager is faster and more security when it can be caught only by your app.

There's another way to communicate between your activitys and your services is using EventBus. It will be much easier than using BroadCastReceiver (especially in passing data between them).

Update: About your update question:

1. is it a good approach to just write my 30 seconds updates to the local db and allow the activities to update themselves every few seconds simply reading from the local db? --> Of course NO. You should let your activities update themselves when they need. When you update your local db, you should know that is there any changes or not. If there is any change, use LocalBroadcastmanager to notify your activity to update.
2. Would that affect the performance too much? --> Yes, that do. The db connection will take time to execute and it will block your UI in some cases. in that case, you should use a thread with ExecutorService for each execute (insert, update...). One more thing to consider is updating that frequently will drain your phone battery very, very fast.

Answer 2

Best option ever:

Use LocalBroadcastManager. More reference here.

MyService.java:

private LocalBroadcastManager localBroadcastManager;
private final String SERVICE_RESULT = "com.service.result";
private final String SERVICE_MESSAGE = "com.service.message";

@Override
public void onCreate() {
    super.onCreate();

   // Other stuff

   localBroadcastManager = LocalBroadcastManager.getInstance(this);
}

Add below method in service, whenever you want to update data from service to Activity, call method by passing Arguments.

private void sendResult(String message) {
    Intent intent = new Intent(SERVICE_RESULT);
    if(message != null)
        intent.putExtra(SERVICE_MESSAGE, message);
    localBroadcastManager.sendBroadcast(intent);
}

HomeActivity.java:

private BroadcastReceiver broadcastReceiver;

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    super.setContentView(R.layout.activity_home);
    broadcastReceiver = new BroadcastReceiver() {
        @Override
        public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
            String s = intent.getStringExtra(MyService.SERVICE_MESSAGE);
            // do something here.
        }
    };
}

@Override
protected void onStart() {
    super.onStart();
    LocalBroadcastManager.getInstance(this).registerReceiver((broadcastReceiver), 
        new IntentFilter(MyService.SERVICE_RESULT));
}

@Override
protected void onStop() {
    LocalBroadcastManager.getInstance(this).unregisterReceiver(broadcastReceiver);
    super.onStop();
}

Hope this will help you.

Answer 3

You can bind the services to the activities and update your UI. Or you can use libraries like Otto or EventBus to create a publisher/subscriber dependency and notify your activities everytime your services publish an update of information.

Answer 4

Use event bus for this communication. EventBus allows publish-subscribe-style communication between components without requiring the components to explicitly register with one another (and thus be aware of each other). It is designed exclusively to replace traditional Java in-process event distribution using explicit registration.

There are a lot of them:

http://square.github.io/otto/

https://github.com/greenrobot/EventBus

This is an example of Otto usage:

Bus bus = new Bus();

bus.post(new AnswerAvailableEvent(42));

@Subscribe public void answerAvailable(AnswerAvailableEvent event) {
    // TODO: React to the event somehow!
}

bus.register(this); // In order to receive events, a class instance needs to register with the bus.

To post from any thread (main or background), in you case a Service and receive events on the main thread:

public class MainThreadBus extends Bus {
  private final Handler mHandler = new Handler(Looper.getMainLooper());

  @Override
  public void post(final Object event) {
    if (Looper.myLooper() == Looper.getMainLooper()) {
      super.post(event);
    } else {
      mHandler.post(new Runnable() {
        @Override
        public void run() {
          MainThreadBus.super.post(event);
        }
      });
    }
  }