Custom Android application launcher

I want to create an application "menu" which houses 4 or 5 icons which launch customs applications specific to my company. Is there a 开发者_C百科specific way to do this in Android?

I don't know what it would be called, exactly, and googling "android launcher", "menu" and "application shell" just bring up a lot of unrelated static. What's this called in android parlance?

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Wufoo,

It sounds like you want an application dashboard. The Google iosched example program might get you on the right path: http://code.google.com/p/iosched/

Unless you mean to have the device ONLY launch your applications, then your app would be a complete Launcher replacement. The Launcher is described as...

The activity can be the initial activity of a task and is listed in the top-level application launcher.

But that may no be what you want.

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Do you want to replace the device home screen and act as the default launcher?

If so you can use some intent filters as per this answer:

<intent-filter>
    <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
    <category android:name="android.intent.category.HOME" />
    <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
</intent-filter>

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You can use home-screen folders to manage arbitrary groups of app launcher icons. Long-press on the home-screen background and select "Folder" to experiment.

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Kiosk Mode. You could customise this (disable access to menu, limit application addition etc) http://code.google.com/p/android-launcher-plus/