Create an advanced widget

This page explains recommended practices for creating a more advanced widget for a better user experience.

Optimizations for updating widget content

Updating widget content can be computationally expensive. To save battery consumption, optimize the update type, frequency, and timing.

Types of widget updates

There are three ways to update a widget: a full update, a partial update, and, in the case of a collection widget, a data refresh. Each has different computational costs and ramifications.

The following describes each update type and provides code snippets for each.

Full update: call AppWidgetManager.updateAppWidget(int, android.widget.RemoteViews) to fully update the widget. This replaces the previously provided RemoteViews with a new RemoteViews. This is the most computationally expensive update.

Kotlin

val appWidgetManager = AppWidgetManager.getInstance(context)
val remoteViews = RemoteViews(context.getPackageName(), R.layout.widgetlayout).also {
setTextViewText(R.id.textview_widget_layout1, "Updated text1")
setTextViewText(R.id.textview_widget_layout2, "Updated text2")
}
appWidgetManager.updateAppWidget(appWidgetId, remoteViews)

Java

AppWidgetManager appWidgetManager = AppWidgetManager.getInstance(context);
RemoteViews remoteViews = new RemoteViews(context.getPackageName(), R.layout.widgetlayout);
remoteViews.setTextViewText(R.id.textview_widget_layout1, "Updated text1");
remoteViews.setTextViewText(R.id.textview_widget_layout2, "Updated text2");
appWidgetManager.updateAppWidget(appWidgetId, remoteViews);

Partial update: call AppWidgetManager.partiallyUpdateAppWidget to update parts of the widget. This merges the new RemoteViews with the previously provided RemoteViews. This method is ignored if a widget doesn't receive at least one full update through updateAppWidget(int[], RemoteViews).

Kotlin

val appWidgetManager = AppWidgetManager.getInstance(context)
val remoteViews = RemoteViews(context.getPackageName(), R.layout.widgetlayout).also {
setTextViewText(R.id.textview_widget_layout, "Updated text")
}
appWidgetManager.partiallyUpdateAppWidget(appWidgetId, remoteViews)

Java

AppWidgetManager appWidgetManager = AppWidgetManager.getInstance(context);
RemoteViews remoteViews = new RemoteViews(context.getPackageName(), R.layout.widgetlayout);
remoteViews.setTextViewText(R.id.textview_widget_layout, "Updated text");
appWidgetManager.partiallyUpdateAppWidget(appWidgetId, remoteViews);

Collection data refresh: call AppWidgetManager.notifyAppWidgetViewDataChanged to invalidate the data of a collection view in your widget. This triggers RemoteViewsFactory.onDataSetChanged. In the interim, the old data is displayed in the widget. You can safely perform expensive tasks synchronously with this method.
Kotlin
val appWidgetManager = AppWidgetManager.getInstance(context) appWidgetManager.notifyAppWidgetViewDataChanged(appWidgetId, R.id.widget_listview)
Java
AppWidgetManager appWidgetManager = AppWidgetManager.getInstance(context); appWidgetManager.notifyAppWidgetViewDataChanged(appWidgetId, R.id.widget_listview);

You can call these methods from anywhere in your app, as long as the app has the same UID as the corresponding AppWidgetProvider class.

Determine how often to update a widget

Widgets are updated periodically depending on the value provided for the updatePeriodMillis attribute. The widget can update in response to user interaction, broadcast updates, or both.

Update periodically

You can control the frequency of the periodic update by specifying a value for AppWidgetProviderInfo.updatePeriodMillis in the appwidget-provider XML. Each update triggers the AppWidgetProvider.onUpdate() method, which is where you can place the code to update the widget. However, consider the alternatives for broadcast receiver updates described in a following section if your widget needs to load data asynchronously or takes more than 10 seconds to update, because after 10 seconds, the system considers a BroadcastReceiver to be non-responsive.

updatePeriodMillis doesn't support values of less than 30 minutes. However, if you want to disable periodic updates, you can specify 0.

You can let users adjust the frequency of updates in a configuration. For example, they might want a stock ticker to update every 15 minutes or only four times a day. In this case, set the updatePeriodMillis to 0 and use WorkManager instead.

Update in response to a user interaction

Here are some recommended ways to update the widget based on user interaction:

From an activity of the app: directly call AppWidgetManager.updateAppWidget in response to a user interaction, such as a user's tap.
From remote interactions, such as a notification or an app widget: construct a PendingIntent, then update the widget from the invoked Activity, Broadcast, or Service. You can choose your own priority. For example, if you select a Broadcast for the PendingIntent, you can choose a foreground broadcast to give the BroadcastReceiver priority.

Update in response to a broadcast event

An example of a broadcast event that requires a widget to update is when the user takes a photo. In this case, you want to update the widget when a new photo is detected.

You can schedule a job with JobScheduler and specify a broadcast as the trigger using the JobInfo.Builder.addTriggerContentUri method.

You can also register a BroadcastReceiver for the broadcast—for example, listening for ACTION_LOCALE_CHANGED. However, because this consumes device resources, use this with care and listen only to the specific broadcast. With the introduction of broadcast limitations in Android 7.0 (API level 24) and Android 8.0 (API level 26), apps can't register implicit broadcasts in their manifests, with certain exceptions.

Considerations when updating a widget from a BroadcastReceiver

If the widget is updated from a BroadcastReceiver, including AppWidgetProvider, be aware of the following considerations regarding the duration and priority of a widget update.

Duration of the update

As a rule, the system lets broadcast receivers, which usually run in the app’s main thread, run for up to 10 seconds before considering them non-responsive and triggering an Application Not Responding (ANR) error. If it takes longer to update the widget, consider the following alternatives:

Schedule a task using WorkManager.
Give the receiver more time with the goAsync method. This lets receivers execute for 30 seconds.

Caution: Any work you do here blocks further broadcasts until it completes, so it can slow the receiving of later events.

See Security considerations and best practices for more information.

Priority of the update

By default, broadcasts—including those made using AppWidgetProvider.onUpdate—run as background processes. This means overloaded system resources can cause a delay in the invocation of the broadcast receiver. To prioritize the broadcast, make it a foreground process.

For example, add the Intent.FLAG_RECEIVER_FOREGROUND flag to the Intent passed to the PendingIntent.getBroadcast when the user taps on a certain part of the widget.

Build accurate previews that include dynamic items

**Figure 1:** A widget preview displaying no list items.

This section explains the recommended approach for displaying multiple items in a widget preview for a widget with a collection view—that is, a widget that uses a ListView, GridView, or StackView.

If your widget uses one of these views, creating a scalable preview by directly providing the actual widget layout degrades the experience when the widget preview displays no items. This occurs because collection view data is set dynamically at runtime, and it looks similar to the image shown in figure 1.

To make previews of widgets with collection views display properly in the widget picker, we recommend maintaining a separate layout file designated for only the preview. This separate layout file includes the actual widget layout and a placeholder collection view with fake items. For example, you can mimic a ListView by providing a placeholder LinearLayout with several fake list items.

To illustrate an example for a ListView, start with a separate layout file:

// res/layout/widget_preview.xml

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   android:layout_width="match_parent"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:background="@drawable/widget_background"
   android:orientation="vertical">

    // Include the actual widget layout that contains ListView.
    <include
        layout="@layout/widget_view"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

    // The number of fake items you include depends on the values you provide
    // for minHeight or targetCellHeight in the AppWidgetProviderInfo
    // definition.

    <TextView android:text="@string/fake_item1"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_marginVertical="?attr/appWidgetInternalPadding" />

    <TextView android:text="@string/fake_item2"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_marginVertical="?attr/appWidgetInternalPadding" />

</LinearLayout>

Specify the preview layout file when providing the previewLayout attribute of the AppWidgetProviderInfo metadata. You still specify the actual widget layout for the initialLayout attribute and use the actual widget layout when constructing a RemoteViews at runtime.

<appwidget-provider
    previewLayout="@layout/widget_previe"
    initialLayout="@layout/widget_view" />

Complex list items

The example in the previous section provides fake list items, because the list items are TextView objects. It can be more complex to provide fake items if the items are complex layouts.

Consider a list item that is defined in widget_list_item.xml and consists of two TextView objects:

<LinearLayout  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content">

    <TextView android:id="@id/title"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="@string/fake_title" />

    <TextView android:id="@id/content"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="@string/fake_content" />
</LinearLayout>

To provide fake list items, you can include the layout multiple times, but this causes each list item to be identical. To provide unique list items, follow these steps:

Create a set of attributes for the text values:

<resources>
    <attr name="widgetTitle" format="string" />
    <attr name="widgetContent" format="string" />
</resources>

Use these attributes to set the text:

<LinearLayout  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content">

    <TextView android:id="@id/title"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="?widgetTitle" />

    <TextView android:id="@id/content"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="?widgetContent" />
</LinearLayout>

Create as many styles as required for the preview. Redefine the values in each style:

<resources>

    <style name="Theme.Widget.ListItem">
        <item name="widgetTitle"></item>
        <item name="widgetContent"></item>
    </style>
    <style name="Theme.Widget.ListItem.Preview1">
        <item name="widgetTitle">Fake Title 1</item>
        <item name="widgetContent">Fake content 1</item>
    </style>
    <style name="Theme.Widget.ListItem.Preview2">
        <item name="widgetTitle">Fake title 2</item>
        <item name="widgetContent">Fake content 2</item>
    </style>

</resources>

Apply the styles on the fake items in the preview layout:

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   android:layout_width="match_parent"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content" ...>

    <include layout="@layout/widget_view" ... />

    <include layout="@layout/widget_list_item"
        android:theme="@style/Theme.Widget.ListItem.Preview1" />

    <include layout="@layout/widget_list_item"
        android:theme="@style/Theme.Widget.ListItem.Preview2" />

</LinearLayout>