15Dec22
Finish means continue in Android.
Yes leave it to Java, again. This time Android Java. The finish
method does not mean stop, it means keep going. This only took about a
month to figure out. It would have cost thousands of dollars in a
commercial settings.
You see with Android, to switch between screens, they have a thing
called an Intent. That's fine and dandy and a neat little tool we can
justify because Android wants to reach as many platforms as possible. If you want
to call another Activity in your app, or call an Activity from another app
you use the Intent API and its method startActivty, with a few other puts
and gets and stuff that seem lower priority for now, especially when
you're just trying to sketch your idea out and get it running and make
sure it works.
Eye! Here's the rub. You place your current activity on the stack
when you call the next one. There are a couple of flags you have to set
in order to make sure your's is the next one the stack when you call it
back, but all in all it's pretty straight forward. And then there's the
finish method. You have to finish your activity before you can call it,
sometimes. When you get to the (Activity)Java code that you're calling
with your Intent you have to finish the activity your calling before you
can 'startActivity' in older versions of Android and recreate' in newer
versions, but I didn't see that mentioned in any of the documentation I
read, until I stumbled upon it in the comments of another article.
Neither 'finish' or 'recreate' were discussed as methods required to
recall an Activity in the Android documentation. At least not in any
reliable, useful, context.
Okay, so if you're like me you read everything you can if your
app/activity doesn't work. If worse comes to worse you re-read the
fundamental literature put out by the manufacturer, in this case
Google/Android and you try every combination under the sun until, one day,
like magic, your press the right button (method) and it works - for no
logical reason.
Finish was mentioned a couple of times, but I tried it, and it didn't
make a difference. It seemed quite natural to put the finish method where
the documentation said it was supposed to be, where you end or 'destroy'
your app. There was nothing about using it when you 'restart' your app.
But there it is. It works. If I had the time I'd outline Google's
documentation and show them how the use of 'finish' is misleading, I
believe intentionally.
All I can figure, is that some who-dinky at Android, who writes the
code, has a sabotage gene and lives to play devious little games that make
their job seem more important. Management probably walked right on by
when they saw the word 'finish', and saboteur knew he/she could get away
with it.
I'll betcha you find a lot of work arounds in apps that want to go back
a page. Or maybe there's just a combinations of things that cause it.
I've stumbled across several similar misleading intentions in Sun's Java
and now Android's Java. The cost of this malfeasance must be astronomical
to the software industry.
