When I rotate the screen on a tablet, my widget's list view disappears and the buttons become unclickable. I'm not sure what happening with the most recent remote view to cause this. Any suggestions?
Here is my onUpdate function
onUpdate
Since we do not have the full code, it's kind of hard to give an actual answer to your problem.
However, I might have an idea & the cause of your problem could be in your .XML file. The same way your app looks great in a certain rotation, most surely on the one you originally designed your work on, it is very possible that it might result in problems when you changed the rotation.
However, it all depends of the layouts you are using & how they are used. I would advise to share your entire code so we can go through it.
Related
Ok, so...
I know, there's been a real amount of questions about it, but it either didn't work, or was really fixed in a hard way. Oh, and that's my second day trying to do it, so please, accept my apologies about that and help me for Chet Haase's sake.
I have a button on top of a fragment, and a RecyclerView below it. When i press the button i want it to disappear and a new RelativeLayout with textfields to slide from the top.
I don't want to make it with animateLayoutChanges="true", cause it's not exactly what i was meant to do, and i want rather learn, than do it.
I tried to do it with widget.animate().translation... and the result was that one widget was just thrown in it's place when the rest of layout stood still. That's not what i meant to do.
I tried also to make an "new TranslateAnimation" since it has this "setFillAfter/Before" attribute... but that did not help me neither.
What i tried as well was to update the layout somehow adding to id margins and stuff (don't remember anymore, and i'm in work right now trying to figure it out, sorry) as it was described in some questions.
But none of that worked. I don't include code right now, cause i already tried to do it in some dozens of different ways.
Could you please tell me how to move a widget and make the rest of them to move with it? Is it possible?
I've already got it going once using setVisibility,animateLayoutChanges and animation combination, but that was massive and dirty as a baby duck.
Edit: oh, i almost forgot about it. Another problem is that when i animate/move a widget, only the rendering spod changes, but the real spot of it stays the same (ex. a onclicklistener)
Ok, me again.
I did it this way, that - let's say - i want to slide a button up and remove it.
So i animate it and all the other widgets (right, i can make a ViewGroup) up, put a listener on animation, and on "onAnimationEnd" i clear all the animations and set the visibility to GONE.
The animateLayoutChanges must be set to false
Still it's not what i wanted, so i'd be indebted to anyone who shows me another, better way.
Library used: appcompat-v7:22.2.1,design:22.2.1
Theme used:
Devices/Android versions reproduced on: Nexus 6
Issue: Return activity quickly redraws/appears then fades in with desired behaviour, only with "Don't keep activities alive".
I am wondering if this is a bug or expected behaviour. I have a very simple setup. Activity A contains a toolbar wrapped in an AppbarLayout and CoorindinatorLayout. The toolbar contains a Cardview and a TextView. Upon click of the TextView, Activity A launches Activity B. I am using shared elements and passing them through as Option's via ActivityCompat.StartActivity(bundle, options);
My shared elements work perfectly, even after device rotation. After reading about how I can PostPoneEnterTransition and combo it up with PreDrawListeners I am able to successfully achieve the desired transition even after rotation. My actual activity contains a Viewpager / TabLayout and 2+ fragments but for simplicity sake, I've stripped it back in the video as well as to see if something else was causing this issue.
While dealing with rotation and postponing of the enter transition back to Activity A, I decided to open developer options and check "Don't keep activities alive". The video depicts the app running with that option enabled. If you look closely, you can see upon return to Activity A, it is completely drawn and hidden very quickly and then the fade in occurs as well as the shared element transition.
I've also excluded the navigation bar and status bar in the animations so that I don't see those flicker (redraw redundantly).
My questions are:
Is this a bug, or am I missing a step in order to prevent this.
Why would the app/transitions behave differently with "Don't keep activities alive" vs a plain old device rotation (destroy/recreate).
I've noticed by playing around with some google apps, this behaviour does not occur, or at least that I could find. Is there a way to concretely check if the activity I am returning too is "completely destroyed" so I can cancel the animation? Or do something different?
I can include specifics and code samples if required but my setup is very simple, and reflects a bunch of boilerplate examples from the Android documentation / Stack-overflow.
Sorry I meant to respond to this earlier. What I ended up doing was recreating the example in a completely fresh project following code samples and tutorials as best I could. First making it work with a single image view, and then of course adding my custom layout which was a floating search bar. Everything worked as expected. I went back and reviewed my actual project source (which was littered with different attempts and commented out code while trying to debug this issue) and cleaned it up. I can't say for sure, but I believe it came down to two possible issues:
"Unless you do something unusual..." - Most likely I "was" doing something unusual by the time I created this issue do to my debugging efforts and lack of full comprehension of the shared elements transition framework and lifecycle.
I think what was happening was the shared element transition was failing do to views not being mapped properly. I was excluding the statusBarBackground inside a transition defined in XML. My statusBarBackground was set to transparent so that I had the nice overlay effect for an expanded drawer layout. I found out that while trying to add the statusbarbackground as a shared element via code, the view was actually null resulting in a crash (NPE). As well as I had set a background color (instead of transparent) to my drawer layout. I can't say for sure, but a combination of these mistakes lead to the strange behaviour.
To conclude, I would say that this issue should be closed and everything is working as intended. It would be nice to get a little more insight on handling a transparent status bar as a shared element.
Is this a bug, or am I missing a step in order to prevent this?
No. Everything is working as intended.
Why would the app/transitions behave differently with "Don't keep activities alive" vs a plain old device rotation (destroy/recreate)?
It doesn't. When everything is setup proper and your timing and mapping of shared elements is correct, "Don't keep activities alive" is a concrete way to test your transitions against configuration changes.
I've noticed by playing around with some google apps, this behaviour does not occur, or at least that I could find. Is there a way to concretely check if the activity I am returning too is "completely destroyed" so I can cancel the animation? Or do something different?
This is because the Google dev's did it right :)
For anyone struggling with shared elements, here is a bit of advice.
Start small. Use a single view first and confirm you are getting the correct behaviour in all circumstances, even after rotation and config changes, then you can add complexity.
Use SharedElementCallback to debug your transitions. You can check which views are mapped, which view failed etc.
I have a list view with some complex layouts.
Some parts of the layouts are set visible/adjusted at runtime (i.e. not everything set by the xml).
It has caught my attention than in some "rare" cases there is a specific part (the same in all cases) that is rendered visually either a few seconds after looking at the list item or if I scroll down the list and then scoll back up again.
What I observe is that it seems like after a few seconds the list item is "redrawn" and the item suddenly appears.
I have added debug output to check for its visibility and according to the console log, the item is visible when the getView is called for that the first time.
So I have no idea what the issue might be.
How can I debug issues like this?
There is an option in the developer pane on your cellphone that flash every time a piece of screen change.
You can also use something like this https://github.com/JakeWharton/scalpel
If you are using an android device you can activate 'developer options' (you'll have to google how to do this for your device as it varies) like Luca said. These are really cool because you can see where changes appear on the screen and add layout borders etc which make it easier to see exactly what is happening. They can be really useful for debugging sometimes!
I had a similar problem and I tried removing most of my code and adding chunks back in to make sure they were working and eventually you should be able to locate at least the general area where the problem is.
Good luck! Sometimes these things can take a while!
Background
There are some nice apps out there that show some layout on top , while the user is making a call or answering one (like "current caller id").
I need to create an app with the ability to show something on top , during a call, and allow it to be interactive.
The problem
Using broadcastReceiver ,foreground service and SYSTEM_ALERT permission, I've succeeded showing something on the screen during calls.
As long as the content being shown is static, I have no problems.
However, I've noticed that when I try to make the content being shown to be interactive , I face some problems:
Everything is jumpy and this includes not only animations, but also setting visibility to visible/gone. I hate to think how it would work like when I need to make things draggable.
Not sure if this is the reason, but using the SlidingDrawer make the entire width belong to the SlidingDrawer and you cannot click through it. This means that if its location is at the bottom, you can't touch the "answer" button when someone calls you.
The question
What is the reason for those problems?
How can I fix them and be able to show things right?
How do other apps handle it right ?
EDIT: about the SlidingDrawer , it seems that it has terrible bugs about its location and size, and the content area, even when it's not shown to the user and the user can see through, it cannot be touched through. Still, I don't know why, and how to fix it, and I also don't know why things are so jumpy compared to normal apps (probably because of over-drawing, but it's really really slow).
Maybe this question should be more general: how to make a floating window like on AirCalc, that can be moved easily yet still be quite fast.
For the dragging functionality, I've tried to get the layoutParams of the root view (which is of type WindowManager.LayoutParams ) that I show, update it and set it again, but for some reason it didn't do anything. Wonder what I'm doing wrong.
EDIT: it seems that i should be using windowManager.updateViewLayout for updating the layoutParams. Using this post , I've made it perfectly draggable.
Ok, I've come up to some conclusions about this, first to answer my original questions:
it's probably because of overdraw and the views i've used. I wanted to try out libraries that could replace the slidingDrawer , but each had a different problem. using simple views proved that the idea in general works.
in the case of visibility changes, it was jumpy because the size of the view wasn't able to fit using the current WindowManager.LayoutParams size.
slidingDrawaer does have issues since it uses the whole size it get when closed or opened.
now to the rest of the issues :
unable to drag ? instead of the regular setLayoutParams , use windowManager.updateViewLayout .
unable to touch outside of the view ? set its minimal size according to your needs. you can also set the window flags so that touch event would go through .
want to listen to calls events ? you can use the broadcastReceiver for triggering the showing of the app, but I suspect that hanging the call might cause the intent be received later sometimes. I think you can use telephonyManager and listen to events there, using the service you run in the foreground (that i've created just to make sure the app won't close in the middle).
if anyone else has questions, i can help.
I was wondering why not use android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation" in every (almost every ;)) activity?
Goods:
no need to worry about your activity been rotated
it's faster
Not so nice:
need to change your layouts if they are depending on screen size (e.g. layouts with two columns or so)
Bad:
no flexible way to have different layouts on different orientation
not so good when using fragments
But if we don't use different layouts, why not?
Quick Background
By default, when certain key configuration changes happen on Android (a common example is an orientation change), Android fully restarts the running Activity to help it adjust to such changes.
When you define android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation" in your AndroidManifest, you are telling Android: "Please don't do the default reset when the keyboard is pulled out, or the phone is rotated; I want to handle this myself. Yes, I know what I'm doing"
Is this a good thing? We shall soon see...
No worries?
One of the pros you start with is that there is:
no need to worry about your activity been rotated
In many cases, people mistakenly believe that when they have an error that is being generated by an orientation change ("rotation"), they can simply fix it by putting in android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation".
However, android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation" is nothing more than a bandaid. In truth, there are many ways a configuration change can be triggered. For example, if the user selects a new language (i.e. the locale has changed), your activity will be restarted in the same way it does by an orientation change. If you want you can view a list of all the different types of config changes.
Edit: More importantly, though, as hackbod points out in the comments, your activity will also be restarted when your app is in the background and Android decides to free up some memory by killing it. When the user comes back to your app, Android will attempt to restart the activity in the same way it does if there was some other configuration change. If you can't handle that - the user will not be happy...
In other words, using android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation" is not a solution for your "worries." The right way is to code your activities so that they are happy with any restart Android throws at them. This is a good practice that will help you down the road, so get used to it.
So when should I use it?
As you mentioned there is a distinct advantage. Overwriting the default configuration change for a rotation by handling it yourself will speed things up. However, this speed does come with a price of convenience.
To put it simply, if you use the same layout for both portrait and landscape you're in good shape by doing the overwrite. Instead of a full-blown reload of the activity, the views will simply shift around to fill the remaining space.
However, if for some reason you use a different layout when the device is in landscape, the fact that Android reloads your Activity is good because it will then load up the correct layout. [If you use the override on such an Activity, and want to do some magical re-layout at runtime... well, good luck - it's far from simple]
Quick Summary
By all means, if android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation" is right for you, then use it. But PLEASE be sure to test what happens when something changes, because an orientation change is not the only way a full Activity restart can be triggered.
From my point of view: If the layout is the same in both landscape and portrait mode - you might aswell disable one of the two in your app.
The reason why I state this is that I as a user expect the app to provide me with some benefit, when I change orientation. If it doesn't matter how I hold my phone, then I don't need the choice.
Take for instance an app where you have a ListView, and upon clicking a ListItem you want to be shown a detailed view for that item. In landscape you would od this by dividing the screen in two, having the ListView on the left and the detailed view on the right. In Portrait you would have the list in one screen and then change the screen to the detailed view when a ListItem is selected. In that case orientation change makes sense as well as different layouts.
I don see why.... occasional restarts are ok in my opinion... configChanges handles most cases for me... well maybe in some types of applications this can be problem but it depends really on type of app and how you restore state when app restarts... When one of my app restarts user is logged back and last activity opens by my code and user jus loses some steps to go back where he was but not big deal.. In other some state is always persisted and some state is always restored on restart. When activity restarted it had to be that app have not been used or something... so no problem at all... In game for example this can be problem maybe or in some other type of app I don't know...
I say that when you do it this way applications just works fine under normal circumstances. And code is much more readable without ton of logic needed for saving and restoring where u just can make new bugs and have to maintain it all the time... sure if android gets out of power and kill you application window it lose the context and starts again, but this happen just in special situations and on newer devices I belive this is more and more rare...
So kill me, but I use this across applications quite successfully...
android:configChanges="locale|keyboard|keyboardHidden|orientation|screenLayout|uiMode|screenSize|smallestScreenSize"
But I understand that for some special kind of applications it may be not good way but most of apps can live with this just OK.
Yeah I think pausing will make it quicker than releasing the player. Still have the pause though.
Have now found a solution that won't pause the song.
State in the manifest that you will handle the config change for screen orientation and then use the onConfigurationChanged method to load the layout file. By doing this in logCat I can see onPause, onCreate & onResume aren't called, and therefore the song isn't paused.
update the manifest to handle the orientation.
android:configChanges="orientation|screenSize"
add this code
#Override
public void onConfigurationChanged(Configuration newConfig) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
super.onConfigurationChanged(newConfig);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
}