Android Linkedin Integration

Android allows your application to connect to Linkedin and share data or any kind of updates on Linkedin. This chapter is about integrating Linkedin into your application.

There are two ways through which you can integrate Linkedin and share something from your application. These ways are listed below.

• Linkedin SDK (Scribe) 
• Intent Share

Integrating Linkedin SDK

This is the first way of connecting with Linkedin. You have to register your application and then receive some Application Id , and then you have to download the Linkedin SDK and add it to your project. The steps are listed below.

REGISTERING YOUR APPLICATION

Create a new Linkedin application at https://www.linkedin.com/secure/developer. Click on add new application. It is shown below:

Now fill in your application name , description and your website url. It is shown below:

If everything works fine, you will receive an API key with the secret. Just copy the API key and save it somewhere. It is shown in the image below:

DOWNLOADING SDK AND INTEGRATING IT

Download Linkedin sdk here. Copy the scribe-1.3.0.jar jar into your project libs folder.

POSTING UPDATES ON LINKEDIN APPLICATION

Once everything is complete , you can run the Linkedin samples which can be found here.

Intent share

Intent share is used to share data between applications. In this strategy, we will not handle the SDK stuff, but let the Linkedin application handles it. We will simply call the Linkedin application and pass the data to share. This way, we can share something on Linkedin.

Android provides intent library to share data between activities and applications. In order to use it as share intent , we have to specify the type of the share intent to ACTION_SEND. Its syntax is given below:

Intent shareIntent = new Intent();
shareIntent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_SEND);

Next thing you need to is to define the type of data to pass , and then pass the data. Its syntax is given below:

shareIntent.setType("text/plain");
shareIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "Hello, from tutorialspoint");
startActivity(Intent.createChooser(shareIntent, "Share your thoughts"));

Apart from the these methods , there are other methods available that allows intent handling. They are listed below:

Sr.No	Method & description
1	addCategory(String category) This method add a new category to the intent.
2	createChooser(Intent target, CharSequence title) Convenience function for creating a ACTION_CHOOSER Intent
3	getAction() This method retrieve the general action to be performed, such as ACTION_VIEW
4	getCategories() This method return the set of all categories in the intent.nt and the current scaling event
5	putExtra(String name, int value) This method add extended data to the intent.
6	toString() This method returns a string containing a concise, human-readable description of this object

Example

Here is an example demonstrating the use of IntentShare to share data on Linkedin. It creates a basic application that allows you to share some text on Linkedin.

To experiment with this example , you can run this on an actual device or in an emulator.

Steps	Description
1	You will use Eclipse IDE to create an Android application and name it as IntentShare under a package com.example.intentshare. While creating this project, make sure you Target SDK and Compile With at the latest version of Android SDK to use higher levels of APIs.
2	Modify src/MainActivity.java file to add necessary code.
3	Modify the res/layout/activity_main to add respective XML components
4	Modify the res/values/string.xml to add necessary string components
5	Run the application and choose a running android device and install the application on it and verify the results

Following is the content of the modifed main activity filesrc/com.example.intentshare/MainActivity.java.

package com.example.intentshare;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;

import com.example.intentshare.R;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.DialogInterface;
import android.content.DialogInterface.OnClickListener;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.net.Uri;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.os.Environment;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.ImageView;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

   private ImageView img;
   @Override
   protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
      super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
      setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
      img = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.imageView1);

   }

   @Override
   public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
      // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
      getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
      return true;
   }
   public void open(View view){
      Intent shareIntent = new Intent();
      shareIntent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
      shareIntent.setType("text/plain");
      shareIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "Hello, from tutorialspoint");
      startActivity(Intent.createChooser(shareIntent, "Share your thoughts"));
   }
}

Following is the modified content of the xml res/layout/activity_main.xml.

<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" >

   <ImageView
      android:id="@+id/imageView1"
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
      android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
      android:layout_marginLeft="98dp"
      android:layout_marginTop="139dp"
      android:onClick="open"
      android:src="@drawable/tp" />

   <TextView
      android:id="@+id/textView1"
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
      android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
      android:layout_marginTop="48dp"
      android:text="@string/tap"
      android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge" />

</RelativeLayout>

Following is the content of the res/values/string.xml.

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

   <string name="app_name">IntentShare</string>
   <string name="action_settings">Settings</string>
   <string name="hello_world">Hello world!</string>
   <string name="tap">Tap the button to share something</string>

</resources>

Following is the content of AndroidManifest.xml file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   package="com.example.intentshare"
   android:versionCode="1"
   android:versionName="1.0" >

   <uses-sdk
      android:minSdkVersion="8"
      android:targetSdkVersion="17" />

   <application
      android:allowBackup="true"
      android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
      android:label="@string/app_name"
      android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >
      <activity
         android:name="com.example.intentshare.MainActivity"
         android:label="@string/app_name" >
         <intent-filter>
            <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

            <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
      </intent-filter>
   </activity>
</application>

</manifest>

Let's try to run your Intent Share application. I assume you have connected your actual Android Mobile device with your computer. To run the app from Eclipse, open one of your project's activity files and click Run icon from the toolbar. Before starting your application, Eclipse will display following window to select an option where you want to run your Android application.


Select your mobile device as an option and then check your mobile device which will display your default screen:
Now just tap on the image logo and you will see a list of share providers.

Now just select Linkedin from that list and then write any message. It is shown in the image below:



Now just select the arrow button and then it would be post on your Linkedin page.