从另一个充当插件的Android应用程序调用方法

Question

I am developing an android application and I want to split it in two separate downloadable store apps. The first will be the main one and the second will act as an addon .

Users will only need the addon in special cases and I don't want to force them to download data they will never use - they will get the addon from Store when they will need (the main application will request it when certain conditions are met).

My question is if Android permits the main application to call methods from the addon app in order to parse the result and display it and how can this be done.

I have looked over similar posts ( Android - Build an application that supports add-ons ) but it is not yet clear to me how this can be done. Until now, I have launched an activity with my intent, it executed as expected and returned the correct result, but I am intersted in having this done without the client to see it (both applications will act as a single one).

Answer 1

I have solved this as njzk2 suggested.

Briefly, the main app is sending a broadcast with an intent that contains the task it needs to be completed. The addon receiver intercepts the call, computes the result and after all the work is done it sends the response back to the main app the same way it received the task: by creating an intent containing the result and broadcasting it.

More info: in my case I needed to synchronize the calls (sending the task and waiting for the response). I did not find any library to do it automatically, so I made use of wait and notify. If someone else knows a better way, please share.