Help required in Alarm Application

Question

I am new to Android. I am trying to develop an Alarm Application, which is actually a speaking clock. I just want the clock to use TextToSpeech API and speak out the greeting stuff and the current time as soon as the alarm time is ticked. The speech part is done. And now I want to implement the Alarm functionality. But Initially I am just trying to display a toast after 10 secs in order to check whether my classes are working properly. And I am not getting the desired response and I don't know why ? Following are the classes

Main Class aClockActivity

public class aClockActivity extends Activity {
    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
  private PendingIntent mAlarmSender;

 @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);


        setContentView(R.layout.main);

        Button button1 = (Button)findViewById(R.id.buttonOn);
        button1.setOnClickListener(mStartAlarmListener);
        Button button2 = (Button)findViewById(R.id.buttonOff);
        button2.setOnClickListener(mStopAlarmListener);

    }

 private OnClickListener mStartAlarmListener = new OnClickListener() {
        public void onClick(View v) {
            // We want the alarm to go off 30 seconds from now.
            //long firstTime = SystemClock.elapsedRealtime();
            EditText Ehour = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.hour);
            EditText Eminute = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.minute);

            CharSequence CharHour = Ehour.getText();
            CharSequence CharMinute = Eminute.getText();
            int hour = Integer.parseInt(CharHour.toString());
            int minute = Integer.parseInt(CharMinute.toString());

            Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
            cal.setTimeInMillis(System.currentTimeMillis());
           // calendar.add(Calendar.MINUTE, 1);
            cal.add(Calendar.SECOND, 10);

            mAlarmSender = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(aClockActivity.this,
                    0, new Intent(aClockActivity.this, Alarm_Broadcast.class), 0);


            // Schedule the alarm!
            AlarmManager am = (AlarmManager)getSystemService(ALARM_SERVICE);
            am.set(AlarmManager.RTC_WAKEUP,
                            cal.getTimeInMillis(), mAlarmSender);

            // Tell the user about what we did.
            Toast.makeText(aClockActivity.this, "The Alarm is Set",
                    Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
        }
    };

    private OnClickListener mStopAlarmListener = new OnClickListener() {
        public void onClick(View v) {
            // And cancel the alarm.
            AlarmManager am = (AlarmManager)getSystemService(ALARM_SERVICE);
            am.cancel(mAlarmSender);

            // Tell the user about what we did.
            Toast.makeText(aClockActivity.this, "Setting off the alarm",
                    Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

        }
    };

Second Class Alarm_Broadcast

public class Alarm_Broadcast extends BroadcastReceiver{
  @Override
     public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
         Toast.makeText(context, "Alarm worked", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
     }


}

Note: Just ignore the Edittext part in the OnClick() method, I'd use it later on.

Apart from the above problem there are few questions that I would like to ask.

1) How can I implement this app so that when the alarm is set, it can actually run as a service in the notification bar where the original AlarmClock runs. So that even if the app is closed its still running to invoke the alarm message at the right time.

2) I cannot show any Dialog box or can use TTS if the AlarmManager invokes a Class that extends either Service or BroadcastReciever.

3) I would appreciate if some one give me the idea to implement this app, I am sure there are many experts who would have gone through the same application.

Regards

Omayr

Answer 1

Just got the answer, whatever service, receiver, activity and etc you are using, you need to register it in your AndroidManifest.xml. Or else it wont work

Answer 2

Here is some sample code i used in an alarm clock app hope it helps.

To set the alarm:

private void setAlarm(){

    Context context = getApplicationContext();

    AlarmManager mgr = (AlarmManager)context.getSystemService(Context.ALARM_SERVICE);
    Intent i = new Intent(context, OnAlarmReceiver.class);
    PendingIntent pi = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(context, 0, i, 0);
    myCal = Calendar.getInstance();
    myCal.setTimeInMillis(TIME_THE_ALARM_SHOULD_GO_OFF_AS_A_LONG);
    mgr.set(AlarmManager.RTC_WAKEUP, myCal.getTimeInMillis(), pi);
    Log.i(myTag, "alarm set for " + myCal.getTime().toLocaleString());
    Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(),"Alarm set for " + myCal.getTime().toLocaleString(), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

}

This goes in the onAlarmReceiver class:

public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) { Intent i = new Intent(context, AlarmActivity.class); i.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK); context.startActivity(i); }

this will start AlarmActivity whenever it needs to go off. In your case you'd put the toast and speech into the AlarmActivity.

Answer 3

How can I implement this app so that when the alarm is set, it can actually run as a service in the notification bar where the original AlarmClock runs. So that even if the app is closed its still running to invoke the alarm message at the right time.

Do not do this. Having a service stick around in memory 24x7 to watch a clock is a waste of RAM and will get you attacked by task killers, reducing your app's effectiveness. Please stick with AlarmManager.

I cannot show any Dialog box or can use TTS if the AlarmManager invokes a Class that extends either Service or BroadcastReciever.

Start an activity, perhaps a dialog-themed activity.