How to enable PictureInPicture for android activities?

[danimarin]

I am adding

android:resizeableActivity="true" 
android:supportsPictureInPicture="true" 

in the main activy at manifest, but when I try to open the PictureInPicture method, I always receive:

Current activity does not support picture-in-picture

But if I create a class in a native module, and launch from native java creating an intent, it works fine. I would like to use it with a titanium window.

Somehow it seems as the activity properties are lost when opening a new window.

Thanks

[jquick-axway]

The main activity is the splash screen window you see on startup.

If you're trying to make a Titanium Ti.UI.Window a picture-in-picture window, then you need to apply this attribute to the org.appcelerator.titanium.TiActivity instead. You can do so in the "tiapp.xml" as shown below. (Note that all activities are resizable by default so you don't need to add that attribute.)

<ti:app>
	<android xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
		<manifest>
			<application>
				<activity android:name="org.appcelerator.titanium.TiActivity" android:supportsPictureInPicture="true"/>
			</application>
		</manifest>
	</android>
</ti:app>

This means you would need to call the Java enterPictureInPictureMode() method on the TiActivity instance which you can get via the window's activity property. You can probably do this via hyperloop or passing this activity instance to your module to call that Java method.

Note that I've never tried pictured-in-picture mode before. Titanium doesn't officially support it, but theoretically the above should make it work.

[Max87ZA]

Hi Joshua, can you please add some example code for this? I'm trying to test it, but there is a difference between Java activity and Ti.UI.Window's activity. I was able to call activity.enterBackgroundMode() via hyperloop, but it throwed error:
Error: Activity must be resumed to enter picture-in-picture So I tried this code:
var windowActivity = $.indexWindow.activity; var pipActivity = Activity.cast(windowActivity); pipActivity.enterPictureInPictureMode();
but it throw error, that enterPictureInPictureMode does not exists... Please help

[jquick-axway]

I tested this out today. I can make picture-in-picture work with a Titanium window in hyperloop, but it'll end up having navigation problems because the system will disconnect the Titanium window/activity from its parent. This completely breaks back navigation.

Unfortunately, this is not something I think we can fix or work-around. From looking at Google's docs and stackoverflow, you're expected to make the picture-in-picture window its own standalone singleTask activity running on a separate task (ie: a separate UI stack). So, I think picture-in-picture activity is best implemented natively... but you can launch it from your Titanium app.

The below is what I've tested with.

<ti:app>
	<android xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
		<manifest>
			<application>
				<activity
					android:name="org.appcelerator.titanium.TiActivity"
					android:supportsPictureInPicture="true"
					android:excludeFromRecents="true"
					android:noHistory="true"
					android:autoRemoveFromRecents="true"
					android:allowTaskReparenting="false"/>
			</application>
		</manifest>
	</android>
	<modules>
		<module>hyperloop</module>
	</modules>
</ti:app>

// app.js
const Activity = require('android.app.Activity');
const parentWindow = Ti.UI.createWindow();
const button = Ti.UI.createButton({ title: "Show Picture-in-Picture" });
button.addEventListener("click", () => {
	if (Ti.Platform.Android.API_LEVEL < 24) {
		alert("Picture-in-Picture is only supported on Android 7 and higher.")
		return;
	}
	const childWindow = Ti.UI.createWindow();
	childWindow.add(Ti.UI.createLabel({ text: "My PiP Window" }));
	childWindow.addEventListener("open", () => {
		const currentActivity = new Activity(childWindow.activity);
		currentActivity.enterPictureInPictureMode();
	});
	childWindow.open();
});
parentWindow.add(button);
parentWindow.open();

[Max87ZA]

Thanks @jquick-axway your example code works for me. It would be very helpful, that when your window enters into PiP mode and user then clicks on one of two buttons - maximize/close, activity will react to activity.onStop/activity.onResume callbacks(not window callbacks).
So, in your code:
childWindow.addEventListener("open", () => { childWindow.activity.onStop = function() { //this happens when user clicks on PiP's X button } childWindow.activity.onResume = function() { //this happens when user clicks on PiP's maximize button } const currentActivity = new Activity(childWindow.activity); currentActivity.enterPictureInPictureMode(); }); childWindow.open();

[danimarin]

Thanks everybody, it's working cool.