Android: google docs send intent?

Question

My application includes a send function, which presents a list of installed programs used to send a document. He does this with:

Intent sendIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND); sendIntent.setType("application/zip"); sendIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM, Uri.parse("file://"+ docPath)); startActivity(Intent.createChooser(sendIntent, "Email")); 

The list displays apps like Gmail and Dropbox, but not in Google Docs. In competing apps that use the same type of document, Google Docs look like intent. Should I use any other method or type of intent to display Google Docs?

Answer 1

You can examine it yourself, run DDMS or LogCat in Eclipse and look at the debug logs recorded when your or another application starts working for the intent ACTION_SEND.

You will see:

 ActivityManager: START {act=android.intent.action.CHOOSER cmp=android/com.android.internal.app.ChooserActivity (has extras)} 

Then also follow the log when you actually choose the application to send. You will see something like this:

 ActivityManager: START {act=android.intent.action.SEND typ=application/zip flg=0x13000000 cmp=com.android.bluetooth/.opp.BluetoothOppLauncherActivity (has extras)} 

Or you can also see this:

 ActivityManager: START {act=android.intent.action.SEND typ=*/* flg=0x13000000 cmp=com.google.android.apps.docs/.shareitem.UploadSharedItemActivity (has extras)} 

Here you see the difference. One application sets the actual type mime = application / zip, other types of applications mime type * / *. This means that the Docs application is not intended to send zip files.

Studying further, use the nice AppXPlore application, open Docs, recreate the Docs application manifest and look at the block with UploadSharedItemActivity (the one that matches the * / * type) in the block of the intent block:

 <activity label="Docs" name=".shareitem.UploadSharedItemActivity"> <intent-filter> <action name="android.intent.action.SEND" /> <action name="android.intent.action.SEND_MULTIPLE" /> <category name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" /> <data mimeType="video/*" /> <data mimeType="image/*" /> <data mimeType="text/*" /> <data mimeType="application/x-vnd.oasis.opendocument.spreadsheet" /> <data mimeType="application/vnd.ms-powerpoint" /> <data mimeType="application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document" /> <data mimeType="application/msword" /> <data mimeType="application/pdf" /> <data mimeType="application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet" /> <data mimeType="application/pdf" /> <data mimeType="application/rtf" /> <data mimeType="application/vnd.ms-excel" /> <data mimeType="application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text" /> <data mimeType="application/vnd.sun.xml.writer" /> </intent-filter> 

This proves that the Docs application is designed to send predefined file types; Zip is not one of them.

An application may respect this decision of the Docs application or may send with the type * / * mime, but in this case the user may be confused why there are unexpected applications that do not process Zip files in the list. I would rely on option 1 and use the actual mime type.