Android Jelly Bean notifications with actions

Recently I had to work with Android JB style notifications. Unlike previous versions, we can add custom actions to these new notifications. What I had to do was upload some files to a server using a foreground service and add an option to cancel the uploading. So I added the Cancel Upload action to my notification.

To add this action I used addAction (int icon, CharSequence title, PendingIntent intent) method.  When the notification is tapped I needed to open the app but I didn’t want to open the app when the Cancel action is tapped.

After some research I was managed to achieve this using a broadcast receiver.

This is my foreground service with the notification.

public class UploadService extends IntentService{

	private NotificationCompat.Builder mBuilder;

	public UploadService() {
		super("UploadService");
	}

	@Override
	protected void onHandleIntent(Intent intent) {
		Intent deleteIntent = new Intent(this, CancelUploadReceiver.class);
		PendingIntent pendingIntentCancel = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(this, 0, deleteIntent, PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);

		//building the notification
		mBuilder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(this)
		.setSmallIcon(android.R.drawable.ic_menu_upload)
		.setContentTitle("Uploading Media...")
		.setTicker("Starting uploads")
		.addAction(android.R.drawable.ic_menu_close_clear_cancel, "Cancel Upload", pendingIntentCancel);

		Intent notificationIntent = new Intent(this, MainActivity.class);
		notificationIntent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_SINGLE_TOP);
		PendingIntent pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getActivity(this, 0, notificationIntent, PendingIntent.FLAG_UPDATE_CURRENT);
		mBuilder.setContentIntent(pendingIntent);
		mBuilder.setProgress(100, 0, true);

		startForeground(12345, mBuilder.build());

		for(int i=0;i<10;i++){
			try {
				Thread.sleep(1000);
			} catch (InterruptedException e) {
				e.printStackTrace();
			}
		}

	}

}

You need to register the CancelUploadReceiver in the manifest file.

<receiver android:name=".CancelUploadReceiver"/>

And when the “Cancel Upload” is tapped it will receive the broadcast. Then we can simply stop the service.

public class CancelUploadReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver{

@Override
 public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
   Intent service = new Intent();
   service.setComponent(new ComponentName(context,UploadService.class));
   context.stopService(service);
 }

}