How to access the Window when not an activity?

Question

I want to access the Window class so I can set the screen brightness on my phone. The problem is that the class I want to do this from is not an activity. Is it possible to do this without being an activity? I have a context and a content resolver, if that helps.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

You have two options here.

1. Start a new transparent Activity , adjust the brightness value (of both the Window and system settings), then call finish() on the Activity . This will steal focus from the user in some cases, no matter what flags you use.

2. Create a persistent transparent system-wide overlay using a Dialog and the flag WindowManager.LayoutParams.TYPE_SYSTEM_OVERLAY . This can cause odd issues like blocking the installation of apps.

In other words, there's no clean way of doing it.