Phonegap Android Background Service Plugin - Explained

Summary

The blog will provide some background behind my Phonegap Background Service Plugin.

A future blog will cover how to use the Plugin to create your own service, however I would recommend reading the below so that the concepts make sense.



What is a Background Service?

Android Applications work differently than the applications we are used to in our PC world.  On our PC's we have become used to running multiple applications and have become used to them working away in tandem.

For example, if we open a YouTube video in IE, we know that it will continue to run regardless of if we are watching it or we switch to Excel.

With Android however an Application will "run" only when it is onscreen.  Once an Application is not on screen (be it because we've taken a phone call, the screen saver comes on, or you open another application) then our original Application will be suspended.  When suspended, none of the Application code will run.

This is a problem if you have code that needs to continue running.  An example of this would be an email client were we want to check for new mail on a regular basis (regardless of if the Application is running or not).

Android provides for this by allowing developers to run Background Services.  A Background Service, as the name implies, runs in the Background.  The benefit of this for us is that we can use a Background Service to run code all the time - regardless of if our Application is running or not.

Why does Phonegap need a Background Service Plugin?

Background Services for Android need to be developed in Java.  To be able to access that java code from Phonegap then a Plugin is required.

The Phonegap Background Service Plugin explained

The Plugin, as available here, is made up of two parts:

The files logically break up as per this diagram:



Every Phonegap Application that uses the Plugin needs to include the core Background Service files:

Each Phonegap Application will then need to have, for every Background Service, two files:

What next?

Next I will start a short series on using the Plugin to create your own Background Service.

Spread the love

If you find the Background Service Plugin useful then spread the love.

All the work I do on the Plugin is done in my spare time - time I would otherwise be spending taking my wife out for a nice meal or helping my lad find vinyl records (he's currently very much into The Smiths, Fleetwood Mac and Kate Bush).

The Plugin is free and will always remain free. I will continue to develop, maintain and distribute the Plugin under the MIT License.

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