We just left off with needing to update our manifest

to include our app WidgetProvider.

So let's head over to a manifest and get to work.

Inside the application tags, let's add a new receiver element and

specify WidgetProvider as the name, receiver and widgetProvider.

Then let's close the starting tag and

next inside the receiver element we need to add an intent filter.

And inside the intent filter, we need to add an action

with the name android.appwidget.action.,

in all caps, APPWIDGET_UPDATE.

You can just copy and paste it in from the teacher's notes.

The purpose of this intent filter is to make sure that our

app WidgetProvider will receive it's update events.

All the other events are sent automatically, so

this is the only one that we need to specify.

Next to finish out our manifest entry, we need to add a metadata element

pointing to the resource that contains this widget's information.

So, under the intent filter, let's add a new metadata element, and

then let's add a name attribute, and let's set this = android.appwidget.provider.

Next, we need to specify the Android:resource resource, so

let's add that in there, and then let's leave it as an empty string for now.

And that's all we need from our metadata element, so let's close that out.

To finish off our widget, we just need to provide an app WidgetProvider info object

as the resource here.

An app WidgetProvider info object just specifies some basic features

of our widget, like how frequently it will update, and what size it should start as.

Luckily, Android's got an easy way for us to create one of these in XML.

Over in the project pane, let's start by creating a new resource directory for

XML files.

New, Android resource directory, and as the resource type,

click xml, and then hit OK.

Then, let's add a new XML resource file to our new directory, and

name it widget_info.

Next, since this isn't going to be a preference screen,

let's change this element to be appwidget-provider.

But before we move on, I want you to know that this is still an app WidgetProvider

info object, not an appwidget-provider as the tag would lead you to believe.

Also, let's get rid of the ending tag as we won't be needing it.

Okay, so inside our appwidget-provider info,

there's a few attributes about our widget that we need to specify.

The first of these are the minWidth and minHeight attributes,

these are basically just the default width and height of a widget.

But since widgets are placed on a grid, we can't always get exactly the size we want.

So we just set a minimum and Android makes sure that we don't go smaller than that.

Let's set our minWidth and minHeight to 50dp.

Next, let's specify the updatePeriodMillis attribute,

and give it a value of 3 million and 600,000.

This specifies how frequently our appwidget-provider will

receive calls to on update.

So, right now on update would be triggered about once an hour.

Also, note that the fastest this is allowed to go is once every 30 minutes.

The next attribute we need to specify is initial layout and

we just need to set it equal to the layout for our widget, so @layout/widget.

Next comes the resize mode,

here we specify how a user will be allowed to resize the widget.

We're going to let users resize the widget both horizontally and vertically.

So let's set this equal to horizontal, and then a vertical pipe, and then vertical.

Finally, we need to specify the widget category, and

since we're making a home screen widget, let's just pick home_screen.

Now that we've conquered our widget info, let's head back to our manifest and

plug this in for the resource at xml/widget_info.

We're all ready to run our app and see if the widget works but

before we do that, let's make a quick change to our run debug configuration.

Since we don't have an activity, we shouldn't be trying to launch an activity.

So let's change Launch options from Launch, Default Activity,

to Launch Nothing, then let's hit OK and run the app.

Once the app is installed, long press on a space on your home screen,

pick the widgets option and

then scroll down to list widget and then add it to your home screen.

And there it is, a beautiful blue square and if we long press on it,

we can resize it too, awesome.

We've covered a ton about widgets, and

we even got a working widget at this point but there's still a bunch more to cover.

In the next video, we'll add some interactions to our widget.