android pressing back button should exit the app

Question

on intent when user press back button should exit from the application, how can i track back button and exit from the app ?

Answer 1

Immediately after you start a new activity, using startActivity, make sure you call finish() so that the current activity is not stacked behind the new one.

EDIT With regards to your comment:

What you're suggesting is not particularly how the android app flow usually works, and how the users expect it to work. What you can do if you really want to, is to make sure that every startActivity leading up to that activity, is a startActivityForResult and has an onActivityResult listener that checks for an exit code, and bubbles that back. You can read more about that here. Basically, use setResult before finishing an activity, to set an exit code of your choice, and if your parent activity receives that exit code, you set it in that activity, and finish that one, etc...

Answer 2

Why wouldn't the user just hit the home button? Then they can exit your app from any of your activities, not just a specific one.

If you are worried about your application continuing to do something in the background. Make sure to stop it in the relevant onPause and onStop commands (which will get triggered when the user presses Home).

If your issue is that you want the next time the user clicks on your app for it to start back at the beginning, I recommend putting some kind of menu item or UI button on the screen that takes the user back to the starting activity of your app. Like the twitter bird in the official twitter app, etc.