Taking a Screenshot in Android from a Service

Question

I've created a Service which runs on top of other apps. I want the service to take a screenshot of the entire screen as the user sees it regardless of what apps are running. Can I have the service run the screenshot function of the phone and store it in a specific location?

Answer 1

Can I have the service run the screenshot function of the phone and store it in a specific location?

No, except perhaps on rooted devices, for obvious privacy and security reasons.

Answer 2

well, similar questions have been really popular on stackoverflow:

How to programmatically take a screenshot in Android?

How to take screenshot programmatically?

how to take screenshot programmatically and save it on gallery?

Especially, this one is usefull:

// image naming and path  to include sd card  appending name you choose for file
String mPath = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().toString() + "/" +  
ACCUWX.IMAGE_APPEND;   

// create bitmap screen capture
Bitmap bitmap;
View v1 = mCurrentUrlMask.getRootView();
v1.setDrawingCacheEnabled(true);
bitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(v1.getDrawingCache());
v1.setDrawingCacheEnabled(false);

OutputStream fout = null;
imageFile = new File(mPath);

try {
    fout = new FileOutputStream(imageFile);
    bitmap.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.JPEG, 90, fout);
    fout.flush();
    fout.close();

} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
    // TODO Auto-generated catch block
    e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
    // TODO Auto-generated catch block
    e.printStackTrace();
}

by Mualig, from one of the posts above.