android - Start a service on onClick

Question

I want to start a service when the user clicks a button.

Basically, when the user clicks the start button the service should start recording GPS coordinates and when he clicks stop the service should terminate.

How should i go about implementing this?

Answer 1

I'm not quite sure why you want to start a service in order to start/stop recording gps coordinates. So I'll give you two answers. One will show you how to start and stop a service with buttons and the other will show you how to start/stop recording gps coordinates which does not need to be done with a service (though can be changed to do so).

Start/Stop A Service With Buttons

The main thing you have to do is add android:onClick="functionToCall" to the button xml tag. Replace functionToCall with the real function name. Then you have to make that function call either the startService() or stopService() function to start/stop the service. Here is my example program that starts/stops a service that called SayHello.

You can ignore most of the following xml just notice the android:onClick=""

main.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    >

<Button android:text="Start" 
        android:id="@+id/Button01" 
        android:layout_width="wrap_content" 
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
        android:onClick="startClicked">
</Button>
<Button android:text="Stop" 
        android:id="@+id/Button02" 
        android:layout_width="wrap_content" 
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
        android:onClick="stopClicked">
</Button>
</LinearLayout> 

ServiceClick.java (the activity I made that holds the buttons):

package com.ServiceClick;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;

public class ServiceClick extends Activity {

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);
    }

    public void startClicked(View view) {
        startService(new Intent("SayHello"));
    }

    public void stopClicked(View view) {
        stopService(new Intent("SayHello"));
    }

}

I'm sure you don't want to start/stop the SayHello Service, so make sure you change Intent to call for the service you do want.