05Starting an Activity

本节要点：

Activity的生命周期。

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Understand the Lifecycle Callbacks

During the life of an activity, the system calls a core set of lifecycle methods in a sequence similar to a step pyramid. That is, each stage of the activity lifecycle is a separate step on the pyramid. As the system creates a new activity instance, each callback method moves the activity state one step toward the top. The top of the pyramid is the point at which the activity is running in the foreground and the user can interact with it.

As the user begins to leave the activity, the system calls other methods that move the activity state back down the pyramid in order to dismantle the activity. In some cases, the activity will move only part way down the pyramid and wait (such as when the user switches to another app), from which point the activity can move back to the top (if the user returns to the activity) and resume where the user left off.

金字塔型如下图：

下面是关于理解Activity生命周期的几个要点：

• Does not crash if the user receives a phone call or switches to another app while using your app.
• Does not consume valuable system resources when the user is not actively using it.
• Does not lose the user's progress if they leave your app and return to it at a later time.
• Does not crash or lose the user's progress when the screen rotates between landscape and portrait orientation.

As you'll learn in the following lessons, there are several situations in which an activity transitions between different states that are illustrated in figure 1. However, only three of these states can be static. That is, the activity can exist in one of only three states for an extended period of time:

Resumed

In this state, the activity is in the foreground and the user can interact with it. (Also sometimes referred to as the "running" state.)

Paused

In this state, the activity is partially obscured by another activity—the other activity that's in the foreground is semi-transparent or doesn't cover the entire screen. The paused activity does not receive user input and cannot execute any code.

Stopped

In this state, the activity is completely hidden and not visible to the user; it is considered to be in the background. While stopped, the activity instance and all its state information such as member variables is retained, but it cannot execute any code.

这三种状态是静态的（也可以理解为长久的，相比于其他的状态，瞬态的）

The other states (Created and Started) are transient and the system quickly moves from them to the next state by calling the next lifecycle callback method. That is, after the system calls onCreate(), it quickly callsonStart(), which is quickly followed by onResume().

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Create a New Instance

Most apps include several different activities that allow the user to perform different actions. Whether an activity is the main activity that's created when the user clicks your app icon or a different activity that your app starts in response to a user action, the system creates every new instance of  Activity  by calling its  onCreate() method.

You must implement the onCreate() method to perform basic application startup logic that should happen only once for the entire life of the activity. For example, your implementation of onCreate() should define the user interface and possibly instantiate some class-scope variables.

应用程序一启动，Android就调用onCreate方法创建每个Activity的实例；onCreate方法在整个生命周期中只执行一次，所以在onCreate方法中定义User Interface和实例化类的成员变量；

Once the  onCreate()  finishes execution, the system calls the  onStart()  and  onResume()  methods in quick succession. Your activity never resides in the Created or Started states. Technically, the activity becomes visible to the user when  onStart()  is called, but  onResume()  quickly follows and the activity remains in the Resumed state until something occurs to change that, such as when a phone call is received, the user navigates to another activity, or the device screen turns off.

Note: The system calls onDestroy() after it has already called onPause() and onStop() in all situations except one: when you call finish() from within the onCreate() method. In some cases, such as when your activity operates as a temporary decision maker to launch another activity, you might call finish() from withinonCreate() to destroy the activity. In this case, the system immediately calls onDestroy() without calling any of the other lifecycle methods.