App Catalog Application for Android Devices

Using the app catalog application in WSO2 EMM you are able to check for applications that you or your Organization made available in the WSO2 App Manager store, and install them on your device. The functionality of the app catalog is simillar to the Android play store. Let's take a look at how it functions.

How it works 

• The users must first install the app catalog application on the device from the App store:  https://<EMM_HOST>:<EMM_PORT>/store/  

• Once the app catalog is installed on the device it will directly call the services exposed by the WSO2 EMM Agent. The EMM agent will fetch the details of all the available applications, install or uninstall applications based on the request made by the app catalog. 

  • For more information on getting the application details via the REST API, see the WSO2 App Manager documentation on getting all the application details.
  • For more information on installing or installing an application via the REST API, see the WSO2 App Manager documentation on installing and uninstalling an application.

  The diagram given below will help you understand how the app catalog works in WSO2 EMM.
  

• After successfully installing the app catalog, you will access it to install / install applications or get the list of available applications. At that point it will automatically navigate to the WSO2 EMM agent's screen to list out all the available applications.

Invoking the application download status API

The Android app catalog application provides an API for external applications to get notified of an application download progress. To invoke this API, the external applications need to invoke the service exposed by the app catalog application and implement a BroadcastReceiver to receive results. The following subsections will provide details on invoking the application download status API.

Guidelines to invoke the API

Use the points given below as guidelines:

• Use the org.wso2.app.catalog.START_SERVICE service name to invoke the API.
• Use the org.wso2.app.catalog.MESSAGE_PROCESSED action name to call and receive the output from the API.
• Use the APP_DOWNLOAD_PROGRESS operation code when invoking the API.
• Define the result intent parameters.
• Define 200 as the status codes to denote success and 400 to denote failure.
  

• Define the payload as the result payload. The service will return the JSON output as the payload.

   {
    “app” : “APPLICATION PACKAGE NAME”,
    “progress” “DOWNLOAD PROGRESS”
  }  

Invoking the API

Follow the steps given below to invoke the API by starting the exposed service.

1. Configure the BroadcastReceiver.

   public class CatalogServiceResponseReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
      @Override
      public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
            String status = intent.getStringExtra(“status”);
            JSONObject result = new JSONObject(intent.getStringExtra(“payload”));
            //Your result manipulation code goes here
      }
   }

2. Register a receiver to listen to the service results. 

   Context context = getApplicationContext();
   IntentFilter filter = new IntentFilter(“org.wso2.app.catalog.MESSAGE_PROCESSED”);
   filter.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_DEFAULT);
   CatalogServiceResponseReceiver receiver = new CatalogServiceResponseReceiver();
   registerReceiver(receiver, filter);

3. Call the service. This should always happen after registering the receiver.

   Intent intent =  new Intent(“org.wso2.app.catalog.START_SERVICE”);
   Intent explicitIntent = createExplicitFromImplicitIntent(context, intent);
   if (explicitIntent != null) {
     intent = explicitIntent;
   }
   intent.putExtra("code", “APP_DOWNLOAD_PROGRESS”);

4. Create an explicit intent method.

   public static Intent createExplicitFromImplicitIntent(Context context, Intent implicitIntent) {
     //Retrieve all services that can match the given intent
     PackageManager pm = context.getPackageManager();
     List<ResolveInfo> resolveInfo = pm.queryIntentServices(implicitIntent, 0);
   
     //Make sure only one match was found
     if (resolveInfo == null || resolveInfo.size() != 1) {
        return null;
     }
   
     //Get component info and create ComponentName
     ResolveInfo serviceInfo = resolveInfo.get(0);
     String packageName = serviceInfo.serviceInfo.packageName;
     String className = serviceInfo.serviceInfo.name;
     ComponentName component = new ComponentName(packageName, className);
   
     //Create a new intent. Use the old one for extras and such reuse
     Intent explicitIntent = new Intent(implicitIntent);
   
     //Set the component to be explicit
     explicitIntent.setComponent(component);
   
     return explicitIntent;
   }