How to add whatsapp like options to contact whenever the is a new contact added to Contacts

Question

I develop an app which needs to do 2 things:

• Create a user account (like WhatsApp).
• Whenever there is a new contact entry, if the contact is using my app, then immediately in the Contacts application show options "call" or "message" in the contact detail page.

Example

Emery

whenever you open the app, check for all contacts in your database, if its in your list, display! That should do right? – Laterality

if you add any contact to contact list , even though whatsapp not running in the background , it will show options call to XXXXXX, message to XXXXXXX, this is what I need to achieve Checkout image attached. – Emery

Answer 1

You need to create a SyncAdapter, this is basically a service that is able to sync contacts to/from a server, like Google does for Google Contacts, you can set it to be notified when a new contact is added, and have your SyncAdapter add the needed info to the contact so it'll show links to your app.

If you go to your phone settings > accounts, you can see Whatsapp and Google's SyncAdapters there, where you can turn them off/on.

To create a sync adapter, you can follow the official docs, or this great tutorial.

Cairo

The tutorial is actually great. Thanks – Velvavelvet

just a question though can we set sync adapter to notify when a new contact is added or you are talking about setting up contentobserver for the contacts base uri ? @Cairo – Alible

This answer only explain how to create a SyncAdapter, and not how to add an option to a contact – Diffuse