Android show bookmarks and history of browser

In this Android tip, I am going to show you how to access bookmarks and history data of browser. Android stores these data in the Browser.BOOKMARKS_URI table. From this table, you can read title, urls, icons, and so on. The column names of the table are defined in the Browser.BookmarkColumns and can be accessed statically. For example, to refer to the column title of the table, you will write Browser.BookmarkColumns.TITLE.


You can read all the bookmarks and history data from the table by using the query method of the ContentResolver instance. The ContentResolver instance can be obtained by calling the getContentResolver method from your activity. The query method returns a Cursor object from which you can process all rows of the table.

Now, to have a workable application to display the bookmarks and history of the browser, you will create a new Android project. Then modify the activity_main.xml file to add a ListView widget as shown below.

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
     xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
     android:layout_width="match_parent"
     android:layout_height="match_parent"
     android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
     android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
     android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
     android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
     tools:context=".MainActivity" >
  
     <ListView
      
        android:id="@+id/hb_list"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent">
      
     </ListView>
  
  </RelativeLayout>


The ListView in this example displays icons, titles, and urls of bookmarks and history. So you need to define a layout file (bh_list_item.xml) that contains three widgets: one ImageView, and two TextViews. The layout file is used as a design template for each row of the ListView. 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
     android:layout_width="fill_parent"
     android:layout_height="wrap_content"
     android:orientation="horizontal"
     android:padding="5dip" >
  <ImageView
     android:id="@+id/icon"
     android:layout_width="30dp"
     android:layout_height="30dp"
     android:padding="5sp"
     android:contentDescription="icon_image"
   />
  
<LinearLayout
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:orientation="vertical"
     >
  
  <TextView
       android:id="@+id/hbtitle"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:padding="1sp"
        android:textSize="20sp"
        android:scrollHorizontally="true"
     android:singleLine="true"
        android:textStyle="bold" >
  </TextView>
  <TextView
       android:id="@+id/hburl"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:padding="1sp"
        android:textSize="15sp"
        android:scrollHorizontally="true"
     android:singleLine="true"
        android:textColor="#0000ff">
   </TextView>
  </LinearLayout>

  </LinearLayout>


You also have to create the BHAdapter class that extends the ArrayAdapter class. The instance of the BHAdapter class will be used to supply the bookmarks and history data to the ListView. Here is the content of the BHAdapter class. 

  package com.example.andtip;
  
  import java.util.ArrayList;
  import android.content.Context;
  import android.graphics.Bitmap;
  import android.text.util.Linkify;
  import android.view.LayoutInflater;
  import android.view.View;
  import android.view.ViewGroup;
  import android.widget.ArrayAdapter;
  import android.widget.ImageView;
  import android.widget.TextView;
  
  
  public class BHAdapter extends ArrayAdapter<String>{
  int groupid;
  ArrayList<String> titles;
  ArrayList<String> urls;
  ArrayList<Bitmap> bitmaps;
  Context context;
  String path;
  public BHAdapter(Context context, int vg, int id, ArrayList<String> titles,ArrayList<String> urls,ArrayList<Bitmap> bitmaps){
  super(context,vg, id, titles);
  this.context=context;
  groupid=vg;
  this.titles=titles;
  this.urls=urls;
  this.bitmaps=bitmaps;
  
  }
  public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
  
        LayoutInflater inflater = (LayoutInflater) context.getSystemService(Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
  
        View itemView = inflater.inflate(groupid, parent, false);
        ImageView imageView = (ImageView) itemView.findViewById(R.id.icon);
        imageView.setImageBitmap(bitmaps.get(position));
        TextView textTitle= (TextView) itemView.findViewById(R.id.hbtitle);
        String title=titles.get(position);
        textTitle.setText(title);
        TextView textURL = (TextView) itemView.findViewById(R.id.hburl);
        String url=urls.get(position);
        textURL.setText(url);
        //make the url clickable
        Linkify.addLinks(textURL, Linkify.ALL);
        return itemView;
  }
  
  
  }


In the MainActivty class, the code will be written to read the bookmarks and history data from the BOOKMARKS_URI table and display the data in the ListView. 

  package com.example.andtip;
  import java.util.ArrayList;
  import android.app.Activity;
  import android.content.ContentResolver;
  import android.database.Cursor;
  import android.graphics.Bitmap;
  import android.graphics.BitmapFactory;
  import android.os.Bundle;
  import android.provider.Browser;
  import android.view.Menu;
  import android.widget.ListView;
  import android.widget.Toast;
  
  
  public class MainActivity extends Activity {
  	
     Activity context;
     private ArrayList<String> titles;
     private ArrayList<String> urls;
     private ArrayList<Bitmap> icons;
     private ContentResolver cr;
     protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
     	//TODO Auto-generated method stub
     	super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
     	context=this;
     	setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
     	//create ArrayList objects to store titles and urls
        titles=new ArrayList<String>();
     	urls=new ArrayList<String>();
     	icons=new ArrayList<Bitmap>();
     	
    
   }
   
     
  
      @Override
      public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
          getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
          return true;
      }
      
      public void onStart(){
     	 super.onStart();
     	 Bitmap icon;
     	 cr=getContentResolver();
     	 //specify field to sort the records
     	 String order=Browser.BookmarkColumns.DATE+" DESC";
     	 //specify columns to read the data
     	 String[] projection={Browser.BookmarkColumns.TITLE,Browser.BookmarkColumns.URL, Browser.BookmarkColumns.FAVICON};
     	 //read all rows from table of bookmarks and history
     	 Cursor rows=cr.query(Browser.BOOKMARKS_URI,projection, null,null,order);
     		 if(rows.getCount()>0){
     		   while(rows.moveToNext()) {
     		   //read title
     		   String title=rows.getString(rows.getColumnIndex(projection[0]));
     		   //read url
     		   String url=rows.getString(rows.getColumnIndex(projection[1]));
     		   //read icon
     		   byte[] bicon=rows.getBlob(rows.getColumnIndex(projection[2]));
     		   if(bicon!=null){
     		   	//convert blob image data to Bitmap
     		   	icon=BitmapFactory.decodeByteArray(bicon,0,bicon.length);  
     		  
     		   	}
     		   else{
     		   	//default icon for history and bookmarks that do not icons
     		      icon=BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(),R.drawable.noicon);
     		   }
     		   
     		   //title, url, and icon to lists
     		   titles.add(title);
     		   urls.add(url);
     		   icons.add(icon);
     		   }
     		   
     		   //show bookmarks and history
     		   showBookmarksHistory();
     	 }
     	 else{
     		 Toast.makeText(context,"Not bookmarks and history", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
     	 }
     	 
      }
      
      public void showBookmarksHistory(){
     	 ListView bhlist=(ListView) findViewById(R.id.hb_list);
     	  if(bhlist!=null){
     		  if(titles.size()>0){
     			  BHAdapter aa=new BHAdapter(this,R.layout.bh_list_item,R.id.hbtitle,titles,urls,icons);  
     			  bhlist.setAdapter(aa);
     		  }
     	  }
      }
  
  }


Before running the project, you need to add a permission to read the bookmarks and history data in the AndroidManifest.xml file as below.

<uses-permission android:name="com.android.browser.permission.READ_HISTORY_BOOKMARKS" />

Android-show-bookmarks-and-history-of-browser

Posted by: Dara | post date: 06-08-2014 | Subject: Android Apps Development

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