I found that when you use the action buttons in expanded notifications, you have to write extra code and you are more constrained.
Prior to using expanded notifications, the default action in my file download notification was to start a VIEW activity on the file. The VIEW intent was wrapped by a Chooser intent. I couldn't use a pending intent for the Chooser intent directly from the notification because the Chooser would crash if there was no activity to view the file type. So I had a BroadcastReceiver that would start the Chooser intent.
With expanded notifications, I decided to change the file download notification so the default action is to show the file details activity, with action buttons for View and Send. As noted by user2536953, starting a broadcast receiver from the notification does not close the notification drawer. Based on his information that an activity would close the drawer, I changed my broadcast receiver to a NotificationActivity without any UI.
As indicated in this post How to dismiss Android notification after action has been clicked, another issue is that you have to manually cancel your notification when the user clicks an action button. The notification is only cancelled automatically for the default action. I also added code in NotificationActivity to handle this.
Building the expanded notification with view and send buttons:
NotificationCompat.Builder builder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(m_context).setAutoCancel(true);
final PendingIntent contentIntent = DownloadedFileIntentUtils.buildPendingItemDetailIntent(m_context, item);
builder.setContentIntent(contentIntent);
PendingIntent viewIntent = DownloadedFileIntentUtils.buildNotificationActionIntent(m_context, Intent.ACTION_VIEW,
m_context.getString(R.string.action_open), uri, MimeTypeUtil.getMimeType(item), id);
builder.addAction(R.drawable.actionbar_open_with, m_context.getString(R.string.action_open), viewIntent);
PendingIntent sendIntent = DownloadedFileIntentUtils.buildNotificationActionIntent(m_context, Intent.ACTION_SEND,
m_context.getString(R.string.action_send), uri, MimeTypeUtil.getMimeType(item), id);
builder.addAction(R.drawable.actionbar_share, m_context.getString(R.string.action_send), sendIntent);
builder.setTicker(title)
.setContentTitle(title)
.setContentText(text)
.setSmallIcon(R.drawable.notification_download);
.setStyle(new NotificationCompat.BigTextStyle().bigText(text));
getNotificationManager().notify(id, builder.build());
Building the intent to start an activity from the notification action buttons:
public static PendingIntent buildNotificationActionIntent(Context context, String action, String actionTitle, Uri uri,
String mimeType, int notificationId) {
// Build the file action intent (e.g. VIEW or SEND) that we eventually want to start.
final Intent fileIntent = buildFileActionIntent(action, actionTitle, uri, mimeType);
// Build the intent to start the NotificationActivity.
final Intent notificationIntent = new Intent(context, NotificationActivity.class);
// This flag must be set on activities started from a notification.
notificationIntent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
// Pass the file action and notification id to the NotificationActivity.
notificationIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_INTENT, fileIntent);
notificationIntent.putExtra(IIntentCode.INTENT_EXTRA_NOTIFICATION_ID, notificationId);
// Return a pending intent to pass to the notification manager.
return PendingIntent.getActivity(context, s_intentCode.getAndIncrement(), notificationIntent, PendingIntent.FLAG_ONE_SHOT);
}
public static Intent buildFileActionIntent(String action, String actionTitle,
Uri uri, String mimeType) {
Intent intent = new Intent(action);
intent.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_DEFAULT);
if (action.equals(Intent.ACTION_SEND)) {
intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM, uri);
intent.setType(mimeType);
} else {
intent.setDataAndType(uri, mimeType);
}
intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TITLE, actionTitle);
// Grant read permission on the file to other apps without declared permission.
int flags = Intent.FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION;
intent.setFlags(flags);
return intent;
}
Notification activity without any UI:
public class NotificationActivity extends Activity {
private final static Logger s_logger = LogUtil.getLogger(NotificationActivity.class);
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
Intent intent = getIntent();
// Cancel the notification that initiated this activity.
// This is required when using the action buttons in expanded notifications.
// While the default action automatically closes the notification, the
// actions initiated by buttons do not.
int notificationId = intent.getIntExtra(IIntentCode.INTENT_EXTRA_NOTIFICATION_ID, -1);
if (notificationId != -1) {
NotificationManager manager = (NotificationManager) getSystemService(Context.NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);
manager.cancel(notificationId);
}
// If there is an activity to handle the action, start the file action.
if (DownloadedFileIntentUtils.verifyActivityIsAvailable(this, fileActionIntent, false)) {
fileActionIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
DownloadedFileIntentUtils.startFileActionActivity(this, fileActionIntent);
}
// Finish activity.
finish();
}
public static void startFileActionActivity(Context context, Intent fileActionIntent) {
// Start chooser intent.
Intent chooser = Intent.createChooser(fileActionIntent, fileActionIntent.getStringExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TITLE));
// Copy the flags from fileActionIntent to chooser intent.
// FileActionExecutor must set FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK on the intent passed to startActivity
// because the flag is required when starting an activity from a context that is not an activity.
chooser.addFlags(fileActionIntent.getFlags());
context.startActivity(chooser);
}
Don't forget to add NotificationActivity to AndroidManifest.xml.