OneTimeAlertDialog

Android AlertDialog that only shows once for a given string.

This is a subclass of AlertDialog with all its features supported. The only difference is that a key is provided in its initialization, which is used to check the default SharedPreferences and save itself once shown.

Use cases

• Show your app's recent updates prompt just once per version name.
• Show a "rate now" prompt just once.
• Quickly create a randomly shown message without worrying about the preferences.

Usage

First, copy OneTimeAlertDialog.java to your project. Then, do something similar to the following.

Simple case

OneTimeAlertDialog.Builder(this, "my_dialog_key")
        .setTitle("My Title")
        .setMessage("My Message")
        .show();

Show recent updates prompt just once per version name

/** Show the recent updates prompt once per version. */
public static void showRecentUpdateOnce(Activity activity) {
    OneTimeAlertDialog.Builder(activity, "recent_updates_dialog" + BuildConfig.VERSION_NAME)
            .setTitle(activity.getString(R.string.recent_updates_title))
            .setMessage(activity.getString(R.string.recent_updates_message))
            .show();
}

Show a "rate now" prompt just once

public static void showRateDialogOnce(final Activity activity) {
    OneTimeAlertDialog.Builder(activity, "rate_dialog")
            .setTitle("One-time message")
            .setMessage("If you like me, rate me. ;)")
            .setPositiveButton("Rate", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
                public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int whichButton) {
                    Uri uri = Uri.parse("market://details?id=" + activity.getPackageName());
                    activity.startActivity(new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, uri));
                }
            })
            .setNegativeButton("Not now", null)
            .show();
}

Limitations

• show() always returns null (rather than the AlertDialog).
• Do NOT directly call create() for OneTimeAlertDialog.Builder. Otherwise a regular AlertDialog without a prefsKey will be returned, thus show() wouldn't be limited.

These two (small) limitations were allowed as a tradeoff to keep the code vastly simplified, smaller, and more future-proof. These two issues are from extending AlertDialog.Builder for OneTimeAlertDialog.Builder. So, calling create() creates a regular AlertDialog instead of a OneTimeAlertDialog. And, show() calls create() internally, so it would only return a regular AlertDialog also. So, it was chosen to always return null, especially since I've never reused the AlertDialog for the one-time prompts. One way around these limitations is to recreate the entire AlertDialog.Builder (basically a large copy+paste), but I didn't find that worth the tradeoffs.

Having said that, if you know a simple way to hide these limitations from the public API, then I'd be happy to learn and fix it!

License

/**
 * The MIT License (MIT)
 *
 * Copyright (c) 2015 Danial Goodwin
 *
 * Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
 * of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
 * in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
 * to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
 * copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
 * furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
 *
 * The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
 * copies or substantial portions of the Software.
 *
 * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
 * IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
 * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
 * AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
 * LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
 * OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
 * SOFTWARE.
 */