Chapter 15 Implicit Intents
Challenge: ShareCompat
Your first challenge is an easy one. Android’s support library provides a class called ShareCompat with
an inner class called IntentBuilder. ShareCompat.IntentBuilder makes it a bit easier to build the
exact kind of Intent you used for your report button.
So your first challenge is this: In mReportButton’s OnClickListener, use
ShareCompat.IntentBuilder to build your Intent instead of doing it by hand.
Challenge: Another Implicit Intent
Instead of sending a crime report, an angry user may prefer a phone confrontation with the suspect.
Add a new button that calls the named suspect.
You will need the phone number out of the contacts database. This will require you to query another
table in the ContactsContract database called CommonDataKinds.Phone. Check out the documentation
for ContactsContract and ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Phone for more information on how
to query for this information.
A couple of tips: To query for additional data, you can use the android.permission.READ_CONTACTS
permission. With that permission in hand, you can read the ContactsContract.Contacts._ID to get
a contact ID on your original query. You can then use that ID to query the CommonDataKinds.Phone
table.
Once you have the phone number, you can create an implicit intent with a telephone URI:
Uri number = Uri.parse("tel:5551234");
The action can be Intent.ACTION_DIAL or Intent.ACTION_CALL. What is the difference? ACTION_CALL
pulls up the phone app and immediately calls the number sent in the intent; ACTION_DIAL just dials the
number and waits for the user to initiate the call.
We recommend using ACTION_DIAL. It is the kinder, gentler option. ACTION_CALL may be restricted
and will definitely require a permission. Your user may also appreciate the chance to cool down before
pressing the Call button.