Dealing with AsyncTask and Screen Orientation

A common task in Android is to perform some background activity in another thread, meanwhile displaying a ProgressDialog to the user. Example of these tasks include downloading some data from internet, logging into an application, etc. Implementing an AsyncTask is fairly a simple job, the big challenge is how to handle it properly when an orientation change occurs.

In this article I will walk though a series of potential solutions to address the screen orientation issues when using an AsyncTask.

So, lets create a proof of concept application that makes use of an AsyncTask which does not handle configuration changes yet, and then present a few solutions.

Here’s the AsyncTask implementation that we will be using during the tutorial:

public class AsyncTaskExample extends AsyncTask<String, Integer, String> {

	private final TaskListener listener;

	public AsyncTaskExample(TaskListener listener) {
		this.listener = listener;
	}

	@Override
	protected void onPreExecute() {
		listener.onTaskStarted();
	}

	@Override
	protected String doInBackground(String... params) {
		for (int i = 1; i <= 10; i++) {
			Log.d("GREC", "AsyncTask is working: " + i);
			try {
				Thread.sleep(1000);
			} catch (InterruptedException e) {
				e.printStackTrace();
			}
		}
		return "All Done!";
	}

	@Override
	protected void onPostExecute(String result) {
		listener.onTaskFinished(result);
	}
}

- doInBackground() – this will be called by the AsyncTask on a background thread, and performs all the heavy work. For the sake of this example, I just wrote a simple loop  with a delay of 1 sec between iterations to simulate a task that takes some time.
- The constructor of the class takes a listener as a parameter. The listener will be used to delegate the work of onPreExecute()/onPostExecute() to the calling Activity.

This is the interface definition used by AsyncTaskExample:

public interface TaskListener {
	void onTaskStarted();

	void onTaskFinished(String result);
}

And here’s the usage of AsyncTaskExample (the problematic case):

public class MainActivity extends Activity implements TaskListener, OnClickListener {

	private ProgressDialog progressDialog;

	@Override
	public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
		super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
		setContentView(R.layout.main);
		findViewById(R.id.start).setOnClickListener(this);
	}

	@Override
	public void onClick(View v) {
		if (v.getId() == R.id.start) {
			new AsyncTaskExample(this).execute();
		}
	}

	@Override
	public void onTaskStarted() {
		progressDialog = ProgressDialog.show(CopyOfMainActivity.this, "Loading", "Please wait a moment!");
	}

	@Override
	public void onTaskFinished(String result) {
		if (progressDialog != null) {
			progressDialog.dismiss();
		}
	}
}

The Activity implements the TaskListener interface and provides appropriate implementation for its methods,  displaying the ProgressDialog when the task is started, and dismissing it when the task is finished. The AsyncTask is fired when clicking on a button.

Now, if you run this example without changing the screen orientation, the AsyncTask will start and finish its work normally. Problems begin to appear when the device orientation is changed while the AsyncTask is in the middle of the work. The application will crash, and an exception similar to these ones will be thrown: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: View not attached to window manager, or Activity has leaked window com.android.internal.policy….

The cause relies in the Activity life cycle. A change in device orientation is interpreted as a configuration change which causes the current activity to be destroyed and then recreated. Android calls onPause(), onStop(), and onDestroy() on currently instance of activity, then a new instance of the same activity is recreated calling onCreate(), onStart(), and onResume(). The reason why Android have to do this, is because depending of screen orientation, portrait or landscape, we may need to load and display different resources, and only through re-creation Android can guarantee that all our resources will be re-requested.

But don’t panic, you are not alone, there are several solutions that will help us to deal with this situation.

Solution 1 – Think twice if you really need an AsyncTask.

AsyncTasks are good for performing background work, but they are bound to the Activity which adds some complexity. For things like making HTTP requests to a server perhaps you should consider an IntentService. IntentService used in conjunction with a BroadcastReceiver or ResultReceiver to deliver results, could do a better job than an AsyncTask in certain situations.

Solution 2 – Put the AsyncTask in a Fragment.

Using fragments probably is the cleanest way to handle configuration changes. By default, Android destroys and recreates the fragments just like activities, however, fragments have the ability to retain their instances, simply by calling: setRetainInstance(true), in one of its callback methods, for example in the onCreate().

There’s however one aspect that should be taken in consideration in order to achieve the desired result. Our AsyncTask uses a ProgressDialog to signal when the AsyncTask is started, and dismisses it when the task is done. This complicates a bit the things because even if we are using setRetainInstance(true), we should close all windows and dialogs when the Activity is destroyed, otherwise we will get an: Activity has leaked window com.android.internal.policy…  exception. This happens when you try to show a dialog after you have exited the Activity.

In order to address this issue, we will add some logic to keep track of AsyncTask status (running/not running). We will dismiss the ProgressDialog when the fragment is detached from activity, and check in onActivityCreated() the status of AsyncTask. If the status is “running”, this means we are returning from a screen orientation and we will just re-create and display the ProgressDialog to show that the AsyncTask is still working.

public class ExampleFragment extends Fragment implements TaskListener, OnClickListener {

	private ProgressDialog progressDialog;
	private boolean isTaskRunning = false;
	private AsyncTaskExample asyncTask;

	@Override
	public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
		super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
		setRetainInstance(true);
	}

	@Override
	public void onActivityCreated(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
		super.onActivityCreated(savedInstanceState);
		// If we are returning here from a screen orientation
		// and the AsyncTask is still working, re-create and display the
		// progress dialog.
		if (isTaskRunning) {
			progressDialog = ProgressDialog.show(getActivity(), "Loading", "Please wait a moment!");
		}
	}

	@Override
	public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container, Bundle savedInstanceState) {
		View view = inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_layout, container, false);
		Button button = (Button) view.findViewById(R.id.start);
		button.setOnClickListener(this);
		return view;
	}

	@Override
	public void onClick(View v) {
		if (!isTaskRunning) {
			asyncTask = new AsyncTaskExample(this);
			asyncTask.execute();
		}
	}

	@Override
	public void onTaskStarted() {
		isTaskRunning = true;
		progressDialog = ProgressDialog.show(getActivity(), "Loading", "Please wait a moment!");
	}

	@Override
	public void onTaskFinished(String result) {
		if (progressDialog != null) {
			progressDialog.dismiss();
		}
		isTaskRunning = false;
	}

	@Override
	public void onDetach() {
		// All dialogs should be closed before leaving the activity in order to avoid
		// the: Activity has leaked window com.android.internal.policy... exception
		if (progressDialog != null && progressDialog.isShowing()) {
			progressDialog.dismiss();
		}
		super.onDetach();
	}
}

Solution 3 – Lock the screen orientation

You could do this in 2 ways:

a) permanently locking the screen orientation of the activity, specifying the screenOrientation attribute in the AndroidManifest with “portrait” or “landscape” values:

<activity
   android:screenOrientation="portrait"
   ...  />

b) or, temporarily locking the screen in onPreExecute(), and unlocking it in onPostExecute(), thus preventing any orientation change while the AsyncTask is working:

@Override
public void onTaskStarted() {
	lockScreenOrientation();
	progressDialog = ProgressDialog.show(CopyOfCopyOfMainActivity.this, "Loading", "Please wait a moment!");
}

@Override
public void onTaskFinished(String result) {
	if (progressDialog != null) {
		progressDialog.dismiss();
	}
	unlockScreenOrientation();
}

private void lockScreenOrientation() {
	int currentOrientation = getResources().getConfiguration().orientation;
	if (currentOrientation == Configuration.ORIENTATION_PORTRAIT) {
		setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_PORTRAIT);
	} else {
		setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_LANDSCAPE);
	}
}

private void unlockScreenOrientation() {
	setRequestedOrientation(ActivityInfo.SCREEN_ORIENTATION_SENSOR);
}

Solution 4 – Prevent the Activity from being recreated.

This is the easiest way to handle configuration changes, but the less advised. The only thing you need to do is to specify the configChanges attribute followed by a list of values that specifies when the activity should prevent itself from restarting.

<activity
   android:configChanges="orientation|keyboardHidden"
   android:name=".MainActivity"
   .... />

Using this approach however, is not recommended, and this is clearly stated in the Android documentation: Using this attribute should be avoided and used only as a last-resort.

You may ask what’s wrong with this approach. Well, if you build the above example against Android 2.2 it will work fine, but if you build it against Android 3.0 and higher, you may notice that the application still crashes on orientation change. This is because starting  with Android 3.0 you need also to handle the screenSize, and smallestScreenSize:

<activity
   android:configChanges="orientation|keyboardHidden|screenSize|smallestScreenSize"
   android:name=".MainActivity"
   .... />

As it turns out, not only a screen orientation causes the Activity to recreate, there are also other events which may produce configuration changes and restart the Activity, and there’s a good chance that we won’t handle them all. This is why the use of this technique is discouraged.

Caching Objects in Android Internal Storage

Android provides several options for persisting application data, such as SQLite Databases, SharedPreferences, internal and external storage.

In this post we’ll take a look how we can use the internal storage to persist application data. By default, files saved to internal storage are private to the application and they cannot be accessed by other applications. When the application is uninstalled, the files are removed.

To create and write a file to internal storage, openFileInput(); should be used. This opens a private file associated with the Context’s application package for writing. If the file does not already exits, then it is first created.

openFileInput() returns a FileInputStream, and we could use its write() method, which accepts a byte array as argument, to write the data. However, in the below example we will wrap the FileInputStream into an ObjectOutputStream which provides 2 convenient methods  for writing and reading objects: writeObject() and readObject().

So, lets  pretend that we need to save a List of some objects. The model class of our object looks like this:

public class Entry implements Serializable{
   private String name;

   public Entry(String name) {
      this.name = name;
   }

   public String getName() {
      return name;
   }
}

Make sure that the model class implements Serializable, otherwise you may get a java.io.NotSerializableException when attempting to write the object on internal storage.

Below is the utility class that provides 2 methods, one for storing objects to internal storage, and another for retrieving objects from internal storage.

public final class InternalStorage{

   private InternalStorage() {}

   public static void writeObject(Context context, String key, Object object) throws IOException {
      FileOutputStream fos = context.openFileOutput(key, Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
      ObjectOutputStream oos = new ObjectOutputStream(fos);
      oos.writeObject(object);
      oos.close();
      fos.close();
   }

   public static Object readObject(Context context, String key) throws IOException,
         ClassNotFoundException {
      FileInputStream fis = context.openFileInput(key);
      ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(fis);
      Object object = ois.readObject();
      return object;
   }
}

An this is how InternalStorage class can be used to persist and retrieve data from internal storage.

// The list that should be saved to internal storage.
List<Entry> entries = new ArrayList<Entry>();
entries.add(new Entry("House"));
entries.add(new Entry("Car"));
entries.add(new Entry("Job"));

try {
   // Save the list of entries to internal storage
   InternalStorage.writeObject(this, KEY, entries);

   // Retrieve the list from internal storage
   List<Entry> cachedEntries = (List<Entry>) InternalStorage.readObject(this, KEY);

   // Display the items from the list retrieved.
   for (Entry entry : cachedEntries) {
     Log.d(TAG, entry.getName());
   }
} catch (IOException e) {
   Log.e(TAG, e.getMessage());
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
   Log.e(TAG, e.getMessage());
}

 

Taking a screenshot of current Activity in Android

In this post I’ll show how you can take a screenshot of your current Activity and save the resulting image on /sdcard.

The idea behind taking a screenshot actually is pretty simple: what we need to do is to get a reference of the root view and  generate a bitmap copy of this view.

Considering that we want to take the screenshot when a button is clicked, the code will look like this:

findViewById(R.id.button1).setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
   @Override
   public void onClick(View v) {
       Bitmap bitmap = takeScreenshot();
       saveBitmap(bitmap);
   }
});

 

First of all we should retrieve the topmost view in the current view hierarchy, then enable the drawing cache, and after that call getDrawingCache().

Calling getDrawingCache(); will return the bitmap representing the view or null if cache is disabled, that’s why setDrawingCacheEnabled(true); should be set to true prior invoking  getDrawingCache().

public Bitmap takeScreenshot() {
   View rootView = findViewById(android.R.id.content).getRootView();
   rootView.setDrawingCacheEnabled(true);
   return rootView.getDrawingCache();
}

 

And the method that saves the bitmap image to external storage:

 public void saveBitmap(Bitmap bitmap) {
    File imagePath = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() + "/screenshot.png");
    FileOutputStream fos;
    try {
        fos = new FileOutputStream(imagePath);
        bitmap.compress(CompressFormat.JPEG, 100, fos);
        fos.flush();
        fos.close();
    } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
        Log.e("GREC", e.getMessage(), e);
    } catch (IOException e) {
        Log.e("GREC", e.getMessage(), e);
    }
}

 

Since the image is saved on external storage, the WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission should be added AndroidManifest to file:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

Using Custom Fonts in Android

By default Android comes with three standard fonts: Droid Sans (default font), Droid Serif, and Droid Sans Mono. They all can be applied to any view that supports styling, such as TextView, Button, by specifying the “android:typeface” attribute in the XML declaration with any of these values: sans, serif, monospace.

<TextView
   android:layout_width="wrap_content"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:text="Sans"
   android:typeface="sans" />

<TextView
   android:layout_width="wrap_content"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:text="Serif"
   android:typeface="serif" />

<TextView
   android:layout_width="wrap_content"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:text="Monospace"
   android:typeface="monospace" />

 

Using custom fonts in Android is pretty straightforward. First find a free font and put it in the assets/fonts directory. (It’s not mandatory to have a /fonts directory, but if I have a lot of stuff in the /assets directory I organize them in separate directories). Then get a reference to your TextView and create a Typeface object specifying the font path. Lastly, apply the typeface to the TextView.

In this particular example I used the font: christmaseve.ttf

TextView textView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.textView);
Typeface tf = Typeface.createFromAsset(getAssets(), "fonts/christmaseve.ttf");
textView.setTypeface(tf);

 

RuntimeException: Native typeface cannot be made

If you get this exception while trying to integrate the custom font into your application, make sure the path to the font file is correct, and the font name is spelled correctly. I noticed I was getting this exception when my font path was misspelled, for example writing “.tff” instead of “.ttf”, or forgetting to add the “fonts/” prefix to the path.

Custom font used in this example provided by: http://bythebutterfly.com

Integrating Google Analytics SDK (V2) with Android

The Google Analytics SDK for Android makes it easy for developers to collect valuable statics about how the users are using their app.

Here are some features that Android Google Analytics SDK offers:

• The number of active users that are using the application
• Usage of specific features
• The number and type of application crashes
• From where in the world the application is used
• And many other useful metrics.

Just to illustrate the integration process lets create a simple proof of concept application with 2 activities: MainActivity and AboutActivity, and 2 buttons: Rate and Share.

Our mission is to integrate Google Analytics SDK with the application, to:

• track activity views, (MainActivity and About)
• track events (how many times the buttons “Rate”, and “Share” are clicked)

If you are searching for Google Analytics I’m assuming you are already pretty familiar with Android and could create the proof of concept application yourself, so I will skip this step and concentrate solely on integration.

 

1. Downloading the SDK

Go to downloads page and download GoogleAnalyticsAndroid.zip Version 2.0. Extract the archive and add libGoogleAnalyticsV2.jar to your project’s /libs directory.

At the moment of writing this post, Google provides two versions: version 1.5.1 (legacy), and version 2.0 beta. Still if the Version 2 of SDK is beta, I highly suggest you choose this version, over the 1.5.1 (legacy).
The reason not to choose SDK 1.5.1 is that it uses a tracking model that is designed to track visitors to traditional websites and interaction with widgets in traditional web pages.

The new “App” profiles and reports will only accept data from version 2 or higher of the SDK.

 

2. Creating a Google Analytics account

Before starting to use the SDK you first must create an account at: http://www.google.com/analytics/

1. Sign in to your account.
2. Click Admin.
3. Click Account list (just below the menu bar)
4. Click +New Account
5. When asked what you would like to track, select App property.
6. Enter all the necessary information and click Get Tracking ID.
   

Now that you have a Tracking ID, you can begin the integration with the application. The first step is to update the AndroidManifest file.

 

3. Updating AndroidManifest file.

Add folowing permissions to the AndroidManifest file:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE" />

 

4. Creating the analytics.xml file

In version 2 of Google Analytics SDK for Android, the tracking settings are managed from an xml resource file called: analytics.xml. You will need to create this file in res/values directory, and add your tracking ID as well as other settings here.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>

   <!-- Replace placeholder ID with your tracking ID -->
   <string name="ga_trackingId">UA-00000000-0</string>

   <!-- Enable Activity tracking -->
   <bool name="ga_autoActivityTracking">true</bool>

   <!-- Enable debug -->
   <bool name="ga_debug">true</bool>

   <!-- The screen names that will appear in your reporting -->
   <string name="com.testgoogleanalytics.MainActivity">MainActivity</string>
   <string name="com.testgoogleanalytics.About">About</string>

   <!--
   The inverval of time after all the collected data
   should be sent to the server, in seconds.
   -->
   <integer name="ga_dispatchPeriod">30</integer>

</resources>

 

5. Tracking activities.

To track activities add the tracking methods to the onStart() and onStop()  of each of your activities.

// Example of tracking MainActivity
public class MainActivity extends Activity {
   @Override
   public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
      super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
      setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
   }

   @Override
   protected void onStart() {
      super.onStart();
      EasyTracker.getInstance().activityStart(this); // Add this method
   }

   @Override
   protected void onStop() {
      super.onStop();
      EasyTracker.getInstance().activityStop(this); // Add this method
   }
}

One thing to note here is that EasyTraker requires a context before you can use it. If you attempt to call any of its methods but did not pass first a context, you may end up with an IllegalStateException.

In the above example, in  the onStart()  and onStop() methods the context is passed as an argument to activityStart() and activityStop(), but  if you need to make EasyTracker calls in other classes or methods, you’ll need to call EasyTracker’s setContext(Context context) method first:

Context context= this;  // Get current context.
EasyTracker.getInstance().setContext(context);  // Set context
// EasyTracker is now ready for use.

 

6. Tracking events

Tracking events is just as easy as tracking activities, you just need a Tracker object and call the trackEvent(String category, String action, String label, int value) method.

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

   private Tracker tracker;

   @Override
   public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
      super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
      setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

      // Set context
      EasyTracker.getInstance().setContext(getApplicationContext());
      // Instantiate the Tracker
      tracker = EasyTracker.getTracker();

      // Add tracking functionality to "Rate" button
      Button rate = (Button) findViewById(R.id.rate);
      rate.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
         @Override
         public void onClick(View arg0) {
            // The rest of your code
            tracker.trackEvent("Buttons Category", "Rate", "", 0L);
         }
      });

      // Add tracking functionality to "Share" button....
   }
}

In this particular example I don’t need a label nor a value, that is why I set for the last 2 parameters of trackEvent() method, an empty string a 0 (zero), but depending of your needs you may populate them with some data.

 

7. Debugging

Debugging helps you deal with troubleshooting, and make you sure that the data actually is sent to the server. To set the Google Analytics in debug mode, add the following setting in the analytics.xml

<bool name="ga_debug">true</bool>

Once your are in debug mode, you can watch the log information in LogCat:

 

Waiting for the big moment!

If everything is configured correctly, the reports should appear on live. Usually it takes about 24 hours to see the data in your account.

 

 

What happens if my application is used when no network is available?

Just in case you asked this yourself…, all the events are persisted in a local storage, and they will be sent the next time your app is running and dispatch is called.

 

Last but not least

One important thing not to be forgotten: you must indicate to your users, either in the application itself or in your terms of service, that you reserve the right to anonymously track and report a user’s activity inside of your app.

Android Google Analytics SDK offers more than tracking activities and events, see: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/android/v2/ to get the most out of it.

Please visit the Android Tutorials page for more tutorials.

How to create popups in Android

In this post I’ll show you how to create a popup window in Android. A popup window can be used to display an arbitrary view, and it can be very convenient in cases when you want to display an additional information, but don’t want or it’s not appropriate to launch a new activity or  display a dialog.

The final output should look like this:

We will use the PopupWindow class to create the popup.

One thing I would like to mention is that we want the popup to be attached to the button that opened it. For example if the “Show Popup” button from the screenshot above would be positioned in the middle of the screen, we want the popup window stick to the button’s position. To achieve this, first we should get the button’s “x” and “y” position on the screen, and pass them to the popup window. Then will we use an offset to align the popup properly – a bit to the right, and a bit down, so it won’t overlap the whole button.

Another think I would like to mention is that we will use a 9 patch background image for the popup, so it will look more fancy. But of course you can skip it and put any background you want, or no background at all.

9 patch image:

Put the image into res/drawable directory.

 

1. Create a new project in Eclipse:
Project: TestPopup
Activity: TestPopupActivity

2. Open layout/main.xml file and add a button

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:background="#CCC"
android:orientation="vertical" >

<Button
   android:id="@+id/show_popup"
   android:layout_width="wrap_content"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:text="Show Popup" />

</LinearLayout>

3. Create a new layout file: layout/popup_layout.xml that defines the layout of popup.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   android:layout_width="wrap_content"
   android:id="@+id/popup"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:background="@drawable/popup_bg"
   android:orientation="vertical" >

<TextView
   android:id="@+id/textView1"
   android:layout_width="wrap_content"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:text="Popup"
   android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge" />

<TextView
   android:id="@+id/textView2"
   android:layout_marginTop="5dp"
   android:layout_width="wrap_content"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:text="This is a simple popup" />

<Button
   android:id="@+id/close"
   android:layout_marginTop="10dp"
   android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
   android:layout_width="wrap_content"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:text="Close" />

</LinearLayout>

 

4. And now the most interesting part. Open the TestPopupActivity and fill it with below code. Carefully read the comments to understand what’s going on.

public class TestPopupActivity extends Activity {

//The "x" and "y" position of the "Show Button" on screen.
Point p;

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
   super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
   setContentView(R.layout.main);

   Button btn_show = (Button) findViewById(R.id.show_popup);
   btn_show.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
     @Override
     public void onClick(View arg0) {

       //Open popup window
       if (p != null)
       showPopup(TestPopupActivity.this, p);
     }
   });
}

// Get the x and y position after the button is draw on screen
// (It's important to note that we can't get the position in the onCreate(),
// because at that stage most probably the view isn't drawn yet, so it will return (0, 0))
@Override
public void onWindowFocusChanged(boolean hasFocus) {

   int[] location = new int[2];
   Button button = (Button) findViewById(R.id.show_popup);

   // Get the x, y location and store it in the location[] array
   // location[0] = x, location[1] = y.
   button.getLocationOnScreen(location);

   //Initialize the Point with x, and y positions
   p = new Point();
   p.x = location[0];
   p.y = location[1];
}

// The method that displays the popup.
private void showPopup(final Activity context, Point p) {
   int popupWidth = 200;
   int popupHeight = 150;

   // Inflate the popup_layout.xml
   LinearLayout viewGroup = (LinearLayout) context.findViewById(R.id.popup);
   LayoutInflater layoutInflater = (LayoutInflater) context
     .getSystemService(Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
   View layout = layoutInflater.inflate(R.layout.popup_layout, viewGroup);

   // Creating the PopupWindow
   final PopupWindow popup = new PopupWindow(context);
   popup.setContentView(layout);
   popup.setWidth(popupWidth);
   popup.setHeight(popupHeight);
   popup.setFocusable(true);

   // Some offset to align the popup a bit to the right, and a bit down, relative to button's position.
   int OFFSET_X = 30;
   int OFFSET_Y = 30;

   // Clear the default translucent background
   popup.setBackgroundDrawable(new BitmapDrawable());

   // Displaying the popup at the specified location, + offsets.
   popup.showAtLocation(layout, Gravity.NO_GRAVITY, p.x + OFFSET_X, p.y + OFFSET_Y);

   // Getting a reference to Close button, and close the popup when clicked.
   Button close = (Button) layout.findViewById(R.id.close);
   close.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

     @Override
     public void onClick(View v) {
       popup.dismiss();
     }
   });
}
}

Creating and Displaying a Custom Dialog in Android

In this post I would like to describe the process of creating and displaying a custom dialog. Though the Android documentation describes pretty well the topic, I faced some problems implementing it, and I would like to share my findings.

The final output should look like this:

1. The first issue I have encountered was that I was getting a BadTokenException in the onCreateDialog() method where I was instantiating the Dialog: android.view.WindowManager$BadTokenException: Unable to add window — token null is not for an application, 

Context context=getApplicationContext();
Dialog dialog=new Dialog(context);

Well, though the Android documentation suggests to use getApplicationContext(); actually it turns out that this is not the proper way to do it and most likely it will throw an exception. The correct way is to use this, or “ActivityName”.this instead of getApplicationContext(). For example:

Context context=MainActivity.this;
Dialog dialog=new Dialog(context);

 

2. The second issue I was facing was that I wanted to get rid off the standard dialog title.
Normally you would set the Dialog title with this:

dialog.setTitle("Dialog Title");

However, if you don’t want to display a standard title for your dialog, not calling the above line most probably won’t meet your expectations, because it will leave an empty space where the title should be.

Hopefully, this is an easy fix. Just call requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE); and you are done.

dialog.requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE);

 

To sum up with a concrete working example, below I presented an implementation of a simple custom dialog.

custom_dialog.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   android:layout_width="250dp"
   android:layout_height="match_parent"
   android:background="#8F1A3B"
   android:orientation="vertical" >

<TextView
   android:layout_width="fill_parent"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:layout_marginBottom="20dp"
   android:text="Custom Dialog"
   android:textSize="18dp" />

<Button
   android:id="@+id/restart"
   android:layout_width="fill_parent"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:text="Restart Game" />

</LinearLayout>

 

MainActivity:

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

Dialog dialog;
int DIALOG_GAME_RESTART=100;

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
   // ............
}

@Override
protected Dialog onCreateDialog(int id) {
   switch (id) {
   case DIALOG_GAME_RESTART:
     Context context=MainActivity.this;
     dialog=new Dialog(context);
     dialog.requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE);

     dialog.setContentView(R.layout.custom_dialog);

     Button restart=(Button)dialog.findViewById(R.id.restart);

     restart.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
     @Override
     public void onClick(View v) {
        dialog.dismiss();

        //whatever code you want to execute on restart
     }
     });
   break;

   default: break;
   }
   return dialog;
}
}

How to verify an RSS Feed if New Articles have been published.

Recently I built an rss app for a site that publishes daily IT News – ITMoldova.com. The main feature of application is to launch a service in background (at a given interval of time), and check if new articles have been published on http://itmoldova.com site. If it turns out that new articles have been published, then fire a notification message and notify the user about this, something like this: “4 New Articles Published on ITMoldova.com”.

How to identify how many articles were published?

The mechanism to identify if new articles have been published on the site (and how many) is pretty straightforward: when the application is installed and launched for the first time, it parses the Rss Feed and creates a new entry in the SharedPreferences with the value of <pubDate> element, of the first item from the rss list (pubDate = publication date). Then, everytime the service starts, it parses the RSS Feed and checks the value of first item from the rss list against the value stored in SharedPreferences, if the value stored in SharedPreferences is less than value returned by the service, then it means that there are new articles and it’s time to notify the user! Lastly, update the SharedPreferences with the most recent pubDate.

For the sake of simplicity and keeping things consistent, I will post here only snippets of most relevant code, but this will be good enough to give you an idea about how things works.

How to compare two dates?

To compare the dates we need to convert them to milliseconds. The getTime() method of Date class can help us return the number of milliseconds of a given date:

Date date=new Date();
int timeMilliseconds=date.getTime();

 

Below is the implementation of verifyDates(String, String) method that will be used by the Service. The method takes 2 string parameters, the pubDate of rss item, and the pubDate stored in SharedPreferences.

public class Tools {
  public int newArticles;
  public boolean hasMoreArticles = true;

  public void verifyDates(String rssPubDate, String sharedPrefLastPubDate) {
    if (hasMoreArticles) {
      SimpleDateFormat df = new SimpleDateFormat("dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss Z", Locale.ENGLISH);
      Date dLastPubDate = null;
      Date dRssPubDate = null;

      try {
        dLastPubDate = df.parse(sharedPrefLastPubDate.substring(5));
        dRssPubDate = df.parse(rssPubDate.substring(5));
      } catch (ParseException e) {
        Log.d("GREC", "Exception in verifayDates: " + e.getMessage());
        e.printStackTrace();
      }

      //We want to count how many new articles were published.
      if (dRssPubDate.getTime() > dLastPubDate.getTime()) {
        newArticles++;
      } else {
        hasMoreArticles = false;
      }
    }
  }

}

The Service Implementation

The service will parse the Rss Feed and do the comparison. Also, it will launch a status bar notification if it turns out that new articles were published.

public class RssService extends IntentService {

  public RssService() {
    super("ITMoldovaRssService");
  }

  @Override
  protected void onHandleIntent(Intent intent) {

    // Retrieve the date from SharedPreferences
    String lastPubDate = getDateFromSharedPrefs();

    // The AndroidFeedParser class helps us parse the Rss Feed.
    AndroidFeedParser parser;

    try {
      parser = new AndroidFeedParser(new URL("http://itmoldova.com/feed/"));
      List<Message> list = parser.parse();

      if (list != null) {
        for (int i = 0; i < list.size(); i++) {

          // Verify the pubDate of each item, against pubDate stored in SharedPreferences
          tools.verifyDates(list.get(i).getDate(), lastPubDate);
        }

        // Get the last pubDate and save it to SharedPreferences.
        lastPubDate = list.get(0).getDate();
        saveToSharedPreferences(lastPubDate);
      }
    } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
      Log.d("GREC", "Malformed URL Exception: " + e.getMessage());
      e.printStackTrace();
    }

    if (tools.newArticles > 0) {
      displayNotification();
    } else {
      Log.d("GREC", "No new articles ");
    }
  }
}

 

The service begins with parsing the Rss Feed and return the list of items:

List<Message> list = parser.parse();

then iterate through it comparing the publication date:

for (int i = 0; i < list.size(); i++) {
    // Verify the pubDate of each item, against pubDate stored in SharedPreferences
    tools.verifyDates(list.get(i).getDate(), lastPubDate);
}

and then ends getting the most recent publication date and saving it to SharedPreferences:

// Get the last pubDate and save it to SharedPreferences.
lastPubDate = list.get(0).getDate();
saveToSharedPreferences(lastPubDate);

If it turns out that new articles were published, display a status bar notification.

if (tools.newArticles > 0) {
displayNotification();
}

 

How to parse an XML feed and how to display a status bar notification are some helper topics you may need to take a look in order to fully complete this task.

Drawing Shapes in Android

In this post I would like to share my findings about defining and using shapes.  A shape is an XML file that defines a geometric shape, including strokes, colors and gradients

To define a shape:

1. Create a new Android XML file in the folder res/drawable

2. Make sure the root element of the file is <shape >. (If it’s not, then change it manually)

3. Inside the <shape> element, press CTRL + Space to reveal all the available elements you can use to define a shape:

As you can see, the elements are pretty self explanatory. To reveal the attributes of an element, put the cursor inside that element and press CTRL + Space:

4. Once the shape is defined, you can specify it as a background resource to any view: android:background=”@drawable/myshape”

Example:

res/drawable/boxbg.xml:

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

<stroke
  android:width="2dp"
  android:color="#FFFFFF" />

<corners android:radius="5dp" />

<gradient
  android:angle="270"
  android:centerColor="#6E7FFF"
  android:endColor="#142FFC"
  android:startColor="#BAC2FF" />

</shape>

 

res/drawable/box2bg.xml:

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

<solid android:color="#4D9611" />

<stroke
  android:width="4dp"
  android:color="#FFFB00" />

</shape>

 

res/layout/main.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:orientation="vertical" >

<!-- First box, boxbg.xml -->
<LinearLayout
  android:layout_width="match_parent"
  android:layout_height="80dp"
  android:layout_margin="20dp"
  android:background="@drawable/boxbg"
  android:orientation="vertical"
  android:padding="5dp" >

  <TextView
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="@string/hello"
    android:textColor="#000"
    android:textSize="20dp" />
</LinearLayout>

<!-- Second box, box2bg.xml -->
<LinearLayout
  android:layout_width="match_parent"
  android:layout_height="80dp"
  android:layout_margin="20dp"
  android:background="@drawable/box2bg"
  android:orientation="vertical"
  android:padding="7dp" >

  <TextView
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="@string/hello"
    android:textColor="#FFF"
    android:textSize="20dp" />
</LinearLayout>

</LinearLayout>

 

The final output should look like this:

Creating a Preference Activity in Android

In this tutorial we will build a preference screen using the PreferenceActivity class. Our main activity will contain 2 Buttons and a TextView. One of the buttons will open the preference screen, and the other will display the values stored in SharedPreferences.

The final output should look like this:

 

And here’s what happens when clicking on the Username/Password fields (left screenshot), and the List Preference field (right screenshot):

 

At a first glance it may look a bit intimidating, but as you will see later, actually it’s quite easy to define a preference screen. Trust me, I’m an engineer! (c)

To put all this things together in a fashionable way, we will be using the PreferenceActivity class. The good thing about this class is that the definition of layout file it’s very simple. It provides custom controls specially designed for preference screens. Another good thing is that you don’t need to write code to save the values from preference screen to SharedPreferences. All this work is done automatically by the activity.

 

So, lets begin creating our preference screen

1. Create a new project in Eclipse:
Project: PreferenceDemoTest
Activity: PreferenceDemoActivity

2. Create a new Android XML file prefs.xml in the folder res/xml/. This file will contain the layout for our preference screen:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<PreferenceScreen xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
 <PreferenceCategory
   android:summary="Username and password information"
   android:title="Login information" >
  <EditTextPreference
     android:key="username"
     android:summary="Please enter your login username"
     android:title="Username" />
  <EditTextPreference
     android:key="password"
     android:summary="Enter your password"
     android:title="Password" />
 </PreferenceCategory>

 <PreferenceCategory
   android:summary="Username and password information"
   android:title="Settings" >
  <CheckBoxPreference
     android:key="checkBox"
     android:summary="On/Off"
     android:title="Keep me logged in" />

  <ListPreference
     android:entries="@array/listOptions"
     android:entryValues="@array/listValues"
     android:key="listpref"
     android:summary="List preference example"
     android:title="List preference" />
 </PreferenceCategory>
</PreferenceScreen>

Notice that the root element of prefs.xml is the <PreferenceScreen> element, and not a RelativeLayout or LinearLayout for example. When a PreferenceActivity points to this layout file, the <PreferenceScreen> is used as the root, and the contained preferences are shown.

<PreferenceCategory> – defines a preference category. In our example the preference screen is split in two categories: “Login Information” and “Settings”

<EditTextPreference> – defines a text field for storing text information.

<CheckBoxPreference> – defines a checkbox.

<ListPreference> – defines a list of elements. The list appears as group of radio buttons.

 

3. At this stage the prefs.xml might complain that the @array/listOptions and @array/listValues resources cannot be found.

To fix this create a new XML file array.xml in the folder res/values/. This file will contain the elements of the ListPreference.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
 <resources>
   <string-array name="listOptions">
     <item>Option 1</item>
     <item>Option 2</item>
     <item>Option 3</item>
     </string-array>

   <string-array name="listValues">
     <item>1 is selected</item>
     <item>2 is selected</item>
     <item>3 is selected</item>
   </string-array>
 </resources>

The “listOptions” array defines the elements of the list, or with other words, the labels.

The “listValues” array defines the values of each element. These are the values that will be stored in the SharedPreferences. The number of list options and list values should match. The first list value is assinged to the first list option, the second value to the second option,… and so on.

 

4. Create a new class PrefsActivity.java that extends PreferenceActivity:

public class PrefsActivity extends PreferenceActivity{

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
   super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
   addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.prefs);
}
}

Notice that instead of the traditional setContentView(), we use here addPreferencesFromResource() method. This inflates our prefs.xml file and uses it as the Activity’s current layout.

 

5. Add the PrefsActivity.java to the AndroidManifest file:

<application
......./>
  <activity
    android:name=".PrefsActivity"
    android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Black.NoTitleBar" >
  </activity>
</application>

 

6. Now, to test our preference activity lets modify the main.xml layout file by adding 2 Buttons and 1 TextView. One of the buttons will open the preference screen, and the other will display the values stored in SharedPreferences.

main.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  android:layout_width="fill_parent"
  android:layout_height="fill_parent"
  android:orientation="vertical" >

<Button
  android:id="@+id/btnPrefs"
  android:layout_width="wrap_content"
  android:layout_height="wrap_content"
  android:text="Preferences Screen" />

<Button
  android:id="@+id/btnGetPreferences"
  android:layout_width="wrap_content"
  android:layout_height="wrap_content"
  android:text="Display Shared Preferences" />

<TextView
  android:id="@+id/txtPrefs"
  android:layout_width="wrap_content"
  android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

</LinearLayout>

 

7. Finally, modify the PreferenceDemoActivity to handle our logic implementation:

public class PreferenceDemoActivity extends Activity {
TextView textView;

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
   super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
   setContentView(R.layout.main);

   Button btnPrefs = (Button) findViewById(R.id.btnPrefs);
   Button btnGetPrefs = (Button) findViewById(R.id.btnGetPreferences);

   textView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.txtPrefs);

   View.OnClickListener listener = new View.OnClickListener() {

   @Override
   public void onClick(View v) {
   switch (v.getId()) {
   case R.id.btnPrefs:
      Intent intent = new Intent(PreferenceDemoActivity.this,
      PrefsActivity.class);
      startActivity(intent);
      break;

   case R.id.btnGetPreferences:
      displaySharedPreferences();
      break;

   default:
     break;
   }
   }
   };

   btnPrefs.setOnClickListener(listener);
   btnGetPrefs.setOnClickListener(listener);
}

private void displaySharedPreferences() {
   SharedPreferences prefs = PreferenceManager
    .getDefaultSharedPreferences(PreferenceDemoActivity.this);

   String username = prefs.getString("username", "Default NickName");
   String passw = prefs.getString("password", "Default Password");
   boolean checkBox = prefs.getBoolean("checkBox", false);
   String listPrefs = prefs.getString("listpref", "Default list prefs");

   StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
   builder.append("Username: " + username + "\n");
   builder.append("Password: " + passw + "\n");
   builder.append("Keep me logged in: " + String.valueOf(checkBox) + "\n");
   builder.append("List preference: " + listPrefs);

   textView.setText(builder.toString());
}
}

Here we attach 2 listeners for each button and display the values retrieved from  SharedPreferences in a TextView.

By this time you should compile and run successfully the application.