Android Manifest File – androidmanifest xml

In this article, we’ll understand the Android Manifest file. As we know that every android project that we make, need to have an Android Manifest file within. This file is present in the root of the project source set. The reason why it is a must to have it is that it describes all the important information of the application to the Android build tools.

Android Manifest File

The manifest file in Android is generally created automatically as soon as the app is built in Android Studio.

Structure of a Manifest file in Android is:

<manifest>
   <application>
<activity android:name="com.example.applicationname.MainActivity" >
    	</activity>
   </application>
</manifest>

The information that is stored in the Manifest file is as follows:

• The name of the application’s package, it is generally the code’s namespace. This information is used to determine the location of the code while building the project.
• Another component is the one, that includes all the activities, services, receivers, and content providers.
• The permissions that are required by the application to access the protected parts of the system and other apps.
• The features required by the app, that affect which devices can install the app from Google Play. These features include both hardware and software features.
• It also specifies the application metadata, which includes the icon, version number, themes, etc.

The android manifest.xml file generally looks like the following:

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

   <application
       android:allowBackup="true"
       android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
       android:label="@string/app_name"
       android:roundIcon="@mipmap/ic_launcher_round"
       android:supportsRtl="true"
       android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
       <activity android:name=".MainActivity">
           <intent-filter>
               <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
               <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
           </intent-filter>
       </activity>
       <meta-data
           android:name="preloaded_fonts"
           android:resource="@array/preloaded_fonts" />
   </application>

</manifest>

Element Tags of Manifest File

Following are the essential element tags of Manifest.xml files:

1. <manifest>
It is the root element of this element. It consists of a package attribute package that tells the activity’s package name.

2. <application>
It is the subelement of the manifest file that includes the declaration of the namespace. It contains certain attributes. These attributes declare the application components, and these attributes include:

• icon
• allowBackup
• label
• theme

3. <activity>
Activity is a subelement of application. It has the declaration of the activity that must be there in the manifest file. It also has certain attributes like name, label, theme, etc.

4. <intent-filter>
It is an element in the activity, it describes the type of intent in which the Android components can respond.

5. <action>
This element provides an action for the intent filter. Each intent filter must have at least one action element in it.

6. <category>
This element adds the category name in an intent-filter.

7. <service>
This element contains the operations that are provided by libraries or APIs.

Manifest File Application Property Elements

Following is a list of important Application Property Elements in manifest.xml (Sub- Node Elements)

1. <uses-permission>: This element specifies the Android Manifest permissions that are requested for the purpose of security.
2. <permission>: This element sets permission to provide access to control for some components of the app.
3. <permission-groups>: This element sets permission to provide access to control for a set of components of the app.
4. <permission-tree>: This element refers to a specific component that is the owner of the set of components.
5. <instrumentation>: This element tells the interaction between the app and the system.
6. <uses-sdk>: This one specifies the compatibility of the app.
7. <uses-configuration>: This element specifies the permissions that are requested for the purpose of security.
8. <uses-feature>: This element specifies one hardware or software feature that is required by the Application.
9. <supports-screen, compatible-screen>: These elements tell the screen size and configuration.

How to set Manifest File Permissions in Android?

Now in this part of the tutorial, we’ll see how to set permission in a Manifest file.

An android application must get some permissions to get access to other apps or the Internet. While we build our app, the manifest file gets automatically generated as manifest.xml. This manifest file contains permissions that are configured by us. A few permissions are applied by default if there is no permission provided by us.

These are written in the manifest file as:

<manifest >
<uses-permission .../>
...
<manifest >

The permission mentioned in the manifest file can be either granted or rejected by the users. Once the user grants permission to the app, the app can use the protected features. If the user denies permission the app doesn’t get permission to access the protected features.

The following permissions are added by default and set to TRUE:

• INTERNET
• ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE
• READ_PHONE_STATE

There are many permissions that are set to FALSE by default but can be set to TRUE as per requirements. A few of these permissions are as follows:

Summary

In this article, we read and understood the manifest file in Android. Also, we saw why we need it for our project. Then, we went through its elements and attributes and how it is defined in the Android manifest.xml file. After that, we went through the permissions in the Android manifest file. We then saw a few permissions that are set to True by default and some that are set to False by default.

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