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Android Threads and Services But Wait There's More! Foreground Services

Posted by Jeff Vig
Jeff Vig
16,345 Points

How do I notify the MainActivity when the song completes?

When the song ends, the button on the UI still says "Pause". I'm trying to get it to change back to "Play" when the song ends.

In the setOnCompletionListener, both the service and foreground are stopped. I thought this would be the place cause the button to change to "Play".

I thought I would send a message from the service, but the service does not know about activity.

What would be the best approach to accomplish this?

1 Answer

Ben Deitch
STAFF
Ben Deitch
Treehouse Teacher
Ben Deitch
Ben Deitch
Treehouse Teacher

Hey Jeff!

First create a Messenger that we can use to communicate with the ActivityHandler:

PlayerService.java 
public Messenger mActivityMessenger;
...
@Override
public void onCompletion(MediaPlayer mp) {
    stopSelf();
    stopForeground(true);
    Message message = Message.obtain();
    message.arg1 = 3;
    try {
        mActivityMessenger.send(message);
    } catch (Exception e) {}
}

Then set the new 'mActivityMessenger' field by using the 'replyTo' property of the Message we pass to our PlayerHandler:

PlayerHandler.java 
@Override
public void handleMessage(Message msg) {
    if (msg.replyTo != null) {
        mPlayerService.mActivityMessenger = msg.replyTo;
    }
...

And finally add another 'else' branch to handle our new message argument:

ActivityHandler.java 
else if (msg.arg1 == 3) {
    mMainActivity.changePlayButtonText("Play");
}

Hope that helps!