Develop Reference

How do I layout my React Native Fire TV SubtitleView correctly?

I am working on a React Native implementation of the Bitmovin player using their Android SDK. At this stage, I'm not sure how specific this is to the Bitmovin player, but as they don't officially support React Native at this stage, I want to ask about this on SO first. This is a React Native UI Component with a custom view, using a layout file. I am trying to present a subtitle view on top of a player view, and I have based my layout on Bitmovin's simple examples. In fact I have simplified the layout even further:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
android:orientation="vertical">
<com.bitmovin.player.PlayerView
android:id="#+id/bitmovinPlayerView"
app:shutter_background_color="#android:color/transparent"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:background="#color/bootsplash_background">
<com.bitmovin.player.SubtitleView
android:id="#+id/bitmovinSubtitleView"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:foregroundGravity="center" />
</com.bitmovin.player.PlayerView>
</LinearLayout>
This presents the SubtitleView at the top of the screen. Nothing I have tried so far presents the SubtitleView at the bottom of the screen in the more common position. I have experimented with every single parameter on all of these elements, as far as I can tell. Here is the code that initialises the view:
public void init() {
inflate(context, R.layout.player_container, this);
StyleConfig styleConfig = new StyleConfig();
styleConfig.setUiEnabled(false);
PlayerConfig playerConfig = new PlayerConfig();
playerConfig.setStyleConfig(styleConfig);
playerView = findViewById(R.id.bitmovinPlayerView);
player = Player.create(context, playerConfig);
playerView.setPlayer(player);
player.on(SourceEvent.Loaded.class, this::onLoad);
player.on(PlayerEvent.Playing.class, this::onPlay);
player.on(PlayerEvent.Paused.class, this::onPause);
player.on(PlayerEvent.Seek.class, this::onSeek);
player.on(PlayerEvent.TimeChanged.class, this::onTimeChanged);
player.on(PlayerEvent.Destroy.class, this::onDestroy);
player.on(PlayerEvent.Seeked.class, this::onSeeked);
player.on(PlayerEvent.PlaybackFinished.class, this::onPlaybackFinished);
player.on(PlayerEvent.Ready.class, this::onReady);
player.on(SourceEvent.Error.class, this::onError);
player.on(SourceEvent.SubtitleChanged.class, this::onSubtitleChanged);
player.on(PlayerEvent.Error.class, this::onError);
subtitleView = findViewById(R.id.bitmovinSubtitleView);
subtitleView.setPlayer(player);
player.setVolume(100);
}
I have read that React Native styles the top-level view of a UI Component, so this is my only clue at this stage. I'm unsure how to respond to that info however...
EDIT: The problem is likely to be that dynamically updating view layouts in Android in React Native is not straightforward. This has been discussed at length here.
EDIT 2: I have tried to listen for global layout changes, which is one of the proposed workarounds for view layout issues:
getViewTreeObserver().addOnGlobalLayoutListener(new ViewTreeObserver.OnGlobalLayoutListener() {
#Override
public void onGlobalLayout() {
requestLayout();
}
});
This is called as expected, but has no effect on the subtitleView, which still displays at the top of the player, which seems to be because it has a height of 0.
EDIT 3: Another suggested solution that didn't work for me:
private void setupLayoutHack() {
Choreographer.getInstance().postFrameCallback(new Choreographer.FrameCallback() {
#Override
public void doFrame(long frameTimeNanos) {
manuallyLayoutChildren();
getViewTreeObserver().dispatchOnGlobalLayout();
Choreographer.getInstance().postFrameCallback(this);
}
});
}
private void manuallyLayoutChildren() {
for (int i = 0; i < getChildCount(); i++) {
View child = getChildAt(i);
child.measure(MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(getMeasuredWidth(), MeasureSpec.EXACTLY),
MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(getMeasuredHeight(), MeasureSpec.EXACTLY));
child.layout(0, 0, child.getMeasuredWidth(), child.getMeasuredHeight());
}
}
I called setupLayoutHack() in the constructor but saw no difference after applying those changes either :(
EDIT 4: My final attempt at fixing the SubtitleView layout was experimenting with measuring and laying out in various ways:
private void refreshViewChildrenLayout(View view){
view.measure(
View.MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(view.getMeasuredWidth(), View.MeasureSpec.EXACTLY),
View.MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(view.getMeasuredHeight(), View.MeasureSpec.EXACTLY));
view.layout(view.getLeft(), view.getTop(), view.getRight(), view.getBottom());
}
However, the height in all cases that I tried was 0, which meant nothing was altered. There is a solution mentioned in the above RN issue that suggests that the shadow node for the subtitle view should be overridden. So one way forward could be to build a new subtitle view that has that included.
However, at this stage it seems to me an easier approach to respond to subtitle cues in React Native and perform all display and styling there.
(There is also a lesser issue of how to make the background on either side of the text transparent, but the layout issue is far more important at this stage).

Disclaimer: I'm not very familiar with React Native and how it influences layout creation if at all.
However looking at your layout file, it indicates that the SubtitleView is the top child of the PlayerView, which is a FrameLayout, thus gets added at the top (left). By specifying android:layout_height="wrap_content" on the SubtitleView it will only take up space that is required by the view. In the Bitmovin sample, it is generated in code and therefore should inherit the attributes from the parent, which is a RelativeLayout with android:layout_weight="1" which results in stretching it's height to the space available.
Long story short, try setting the height of your SubtitleView to match_parent

Context Menu not appearing only at certain times on Edittext while in RecyclerView

I have a strange situation...
I have a RecyclerView with swipeRefresh enabled... and the 1st item in my RecyclerView is a CardView having
<com.daniribalbert.customfontlib.views.CustomFontEditText
android:id="#+id/start_chat_add_comment"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:paddingTop="#dimen/general_gap_smallest"
android:paddingBottom="#dimen/general_gap_smallest"
android:gravity="top"
android:layout_toLeftOf="#id/start_chat_post_comment"
android:layout_toRightOf="#id/start_chat_attach_media"
android:background="#android:color/transparent"
android:imeOptions="actionDone"
android:textColorHint="#color/edit_text_hint_color"
android:textColor="#color/newsfeed_text_card_owner_main_text_color"
android:textSize="#dimen/font_normal"
app:font="Roboto-Regular"/>
When the recyclerview is inflated 1st time, I am able to longpress on the EditText and access the context menu. However each time I refresh the recyclerview by pulling swiperefresh (a new card is added as it was added for the 1st time), my context menu never appears on longpress on EditText.
JFYI ... i do not experience a certain vibration on the phone either on longpress on EditText at this point in time when the context menu does not show up.
I have tried looking out for some information and stuff, but nothing looks to be helpful, except at some point someone mentioned that context menu may not work if edittext is a part of popup (alertbox), and even the option of textIsSelectable = "true" did not come any handy.
Any help is much appreciated.

This fix worked for me:
edtImgDesc.addOnAttachStateChangeListener(new View.OnAttachStateChangeListener() {
#Override
public void onViewAttachedToWindow(View v) {
edtImgDesc.setCursorVisible(false);
edtImgDesc.setCursorVisible(true);
}
#Override
public void onViewDetachedFromWindow(View v) {
}
})
Taken from: Long pressed broken for EditText (Or android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatEditText) after the view is recycled in RecyclerView

My App Crashes When I Try Showing A Snackbar

I am using Android Studio's navigation drawer activity, and I want a snackbar to appear whenever I click on one of the buttons in the drawer, but when I click on it, the app crashes.
Here is a simplified version of the code run when I click on one of the navigation buttons:
#SuppressWarnings("StatementWithEmptyBody")
#Override
public boolean onNavigationItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
DrawerLayout drawer = (DrawerLayout) findViewById(R.id.drawer_layout);
int id = item.getItemId();
if (id == R.id.nav_playstore) {
Snackbar.make(findViewById(R.id.nav_playstore), "This app is not available on the Play Store yet", Snackbar.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}
I think the problem is that I should replace findViewById(R.id.nav_playstore) with something else, but I'm not sure what I would put there instead. If you need more info, I can give you some. Thanks :)
Edit: Here's the stacktrace:
08-03 10:03:45.658 20870-20870/ca.davesautoservice.davesautoservice E/AndroidRuntime: FATAL EXCEPTION: main
Process: ca.davesautoservice.davesautoservice, PID: 20870
java.lang.NullPointerException
at android.support.design.widget.Snackbar.<init>(Snackbar.java:183)
at android.support.design.widget.Snackbar.make(Snackbar.java:215)
at ca.davesautoservice.davesautoservice.MainActivity.onNavigationItemSelected(MainActivity.java:106)
at android.support.design.widget.NavigationView$1.onMenuItemSelected(NavigationView.java:151)
at android.support.v7.view.menu.MenuBuilder.dispatchMenuItemSelected(MenuBuilder.java:811)
at android.support.v7.view.menu.SubMenuBuilder.dispatchMenuItemSelected(SubMenuBuilder.java:84)
at android.support.v7.view.menu.MenuItemImpl.invoke(MenuItemImpl.java:152)
at android.support.v7.view.menu.MenuBuilder.performItemAction(MenuBuilder.java:958)
at android.support.design.internal.NavigationMenuPresenter$1.onClick(NavigationMenuPresenter.java:318)
at android.view.View.performClick(View.java:4463)
at android.view.View$PerformClick.run(View.java:18770)
at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:808)
at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:103)
at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:193)
at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5333)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:515)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:828)
at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:644)
at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

Kelvin.
Reading the DOCS, you can see that first parameters is:
View: The view to find a parent from.
So, you should pass any view that you have. This way, snack bar can track and find the parent view.
You probably have any other view in your activity.
You are passing
Snackbar.make(findViewById(R.id.nav_playstore), "This app is not available on the Play Store yet", Snackbar.LENGTH_LONG).show();
However R.id.nav_playstore is the ID a of a menu item (and not a VIEW). This way, findViewById(R.id.nav_playstore) returns NULL.
Change the ID from findViewById(R.id.nav_playstore) to an ID of any other View that you have on current Activity. It can be a TextView, EditText
etc...

Snack bar needs either Cordinator layout's view or FloatingAction Button's view to operate properly and respond accurately.
And you passed nav's id in Snackbar's body.
What to do
1- Wrap layout inside Coordinator Layout assign it an ID and use that view in Snackbar.
2- Pass findViewById of FAB (if exists) then it will show snackbar appropriately.
Snackbar.make(findViewById(R.id.fab), "message", Snackbar.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
Hope it helps.

Android: requestLayout() improperly called

The following error occurs when I attempt to inflate a layout within a ListView:
requestLayout() improperly called by android.widget.TextView{...} during layout: running second layout pass
I am attempting to inflate a layout within a ListView as follows:
#Override
public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
if(convertView == null){
LayoutInflater inflater = (LayoutInflater) musicActivity.getSystemService(Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
convertView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.list_item, parent, false);
...
}else{...}
}
The layout being inflated can look as simple as the following, and will still produce the error
<TextView
android:id="#+id/txt"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:textSize="#dimen/txt_size"/>
I have looked into similar questions, and no solutions found seem to work Question 1, Question 2, Question 3.
Does anyone know what causes this type of error? Any troubleshooting advice? For more context, this ListView is displayed within a Fragment within a ViewPager
UPDATE
Here is the full XML Layout (minus a bunch of attributes), that still results in the problem
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<TextView
android:id="#+id/txt1"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
<TextView
android:id="#+id/txt2"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
<TextView
android:id="#+id/txt3"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
<TextView
android:id="#+id/txt4"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>
</RelativeLayout>
Based on this, I would think the XML itself is not a problem, unless it has to do with the fact that I am using a ViewPager and Fragments

This issue seems to be a bug in the android implementation, please see: https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=75516
Activating the fast scroll feature of a ListView in your code via ListView.setFastScrollEnabled(true) will trigger this bug and you'll start seeing the
requestLayout() improperly called by android.widget.TextView{...}
during layout: running second layout pass
message in your console.
This bug must have been introduced in one of the KitKat (4.4.x) updates, as I've not seen it with the initial KitKat (4.4.0) release. Apart from the ugly console spamming with the debug message from above, there seem to be no other impacts (maybe performance in some cases, which I haven't tested).
Cheers
PS: it's not the first time that the fast scroll feature is bugged, e.g. https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=63545, 63545 was fixed in KitKat 4.4.3 but 75516 poped up thereafter --> seems to be a vexed subject for google ;-)
EDIT May 12 2015:
I updated my Nexus 7 to Android 5.1 some minutes ago (was Running 5.0 before) and stopped seeing this issue in this new version. As the appearance of the FastScroll indicator also changed in 5.1, I assume that google fixed this issue or at least commented out those ugly lines that spammed the console...
75516 & 82461 are still 'unresolved', but I guess that those refer to the same issue, that's now resolved in 5.1.

The problem is that while the method getView() of your adapter is displaying your layout some other code is trying to access this view to display it, resulting in a collision.
Note that some methods, that maybe you don't take care of (like setScale(), setTypeFace()) indeed call requestLayout(), so it would be interesting what you are doing after your inflate statement.

For me this issue was occurring upon a setLayoutParams() call. The solution was posting a runnable on the looper:
// java
imageView.post(new Runnable() {
#Override public void run() {
imageView.setLayoutParams(params);
}
});
// kotlin
post(Runnable { imageView.setLayoutParams(params) })

I fixed this issue by disabling fastScroll on the ListView in the XML.
<ListView
android:id="#+id/mListview"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:fastScrollEnabled="false"
/>

In my case (Samsung Galaxy S4, API 21) this happened in ListView with EditTexts. I have a listener for field validation. Something like:
edit.setOnFocusChangeListener(new View.OnFocusChangeListener() {
public void onFocusChange(View v, boolean hasFocus) {
if (hasFocus) {
error.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
error.setText("");
} else {
String s = edit.getText().toString();
if (s.isEmpty()) {
error.setText("Error 1");
} else if (s.length() < 2 || s.length() > 100) {
error.setText("Error 2");
}
error.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
}
}
});
After settinging focus in one of these EditTexts an above check is called. After that a TextView will change (the TextView contains an error message and lies over the EditText).
Setting focus to the second or the third EditText led to permanent request of the first EditText and return to current. An applications runs in infinite loop of requests (focus edittext 1, unfocus edittext 1, focus 3, unfocus 3, focus 1, etc).
I tried to set listView.setFastScrollEnabled(false). Also I tried a requestLayout() of some elements like in https://github.com/sephiroth74/HorizontalVariableListView/issues/93 with no chances.
Currently I made that TextView of fixed width and height in XML:
<TextView
android:id="#+id/error"
android:layout_width="match_parent" (or "200dp", but not "wrap_content")
android:layout_height="20dp"
.../>
After some experiments I noticed that a height of 20dp can be replaced with "wrap_content". But if a text is too long that divides into 2 lines, the application again catches in the infinite loop. So, android:singleLine="true" will help. It is deprecated, but amazingly android:maxLines="1" with android:lines="1" don't help as they again request layout.
Eventually we have:
<TextView
android:id="#+id/error"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:singleLine="true"
android:textColor="#f00"
android:textSize="20sp"
tools:text="Error message"/>
That's not a good solution, but at least it breaks the infinite loop.

This might happen if you are using some 3rd party extension of ListView. Replace that with standard ListView and check if it still throws the error.
I had similar problem. Please check Android layout: running second layout pass and my answer.

I had the same issue with Kitkat 4.4.4 on Motorola X with Genymotion. In my case the list item is a simple CheckedTextView and the error occurred in AppCompatCheckedTextView.
As a normal implementation I inflated the item from XML layout file like below:
if (convertView == null) {
convertView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.checkable_list_entry, parent, false);
}
After some trying I found out that this has something to do with XML inflation. I don't know the root cause, but as a solution I decided to inflate the list item by code and set all the properties by code too.
It ended up like this:
CheckedTextView view;
if (convertView == null) {
view = new CheckedTextView(parent.getContext());
view.setMinHeight(getResources().getDimensionPixelSize(R.dimen.default_touch_height));
if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.M) {
view.setTextAppearance(R.style.SectionEntry);
} else {
view.setTextAppearance(parent.getContext(), R.style.SectionEntry);
}
view.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.form_element);
view.setGravity(Gravity.LEFT | Gravity.CENTER_VERTICAL);
view.setLayoutParams(new AbsListView.LayoutParams(AbsListView.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT, AbsListView.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT));
} else {
view = (CheckedTextView) convertView;
}

I had a problem with the same warning log :
requestLayout() improperly called by android.support.v7.widget.AppCompatTextView {...} during layout: running second layout pass
I was working with recylcerview and going to update it with new data.
The only solution that worked for me is as below :
Step(1). Remove current data :
public void removeAll() {
items.clear(); //clear list
notifyDataSetChanged();
}
Step(2). When you want to populate the recyclerview with new data, first set a new LayoutManager to recyclerview again:
private void initRecycleView() {
recyclerView.setHasFixedSize(true);
recyclerView.setLayoutManager(new LinearLayoutManager(activity, LinearLayoutManager.VERTICAL, false));
}
Step(3). Update the recyclerview with new data. for example :
public void refreshData(List newItems) {
this.items = newItems;
notifyItemRangeChanged(0, items.size());
}

Try taking off the textSize from the xml and setting it in Java code. I think that's causing it to be laid out twice.

In my case this warning prevented a button from showing up in API 21 devices. The button visibility was previously set to GONE.
The only workaround I got it was setting to INVISIBLE instead of GONE for API 21. It wasn't a real solution but it was acceptable for me.
I only post this because it can be useful from somebody.
if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT == Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP) {
theButton.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
}
else {
theButton.setVisibility(View.GONE);
}

Sometimes you maybe already fixed the issue but it still keeps same error, so you need to close visual studio then delete all bin and obj folders from your projects, then uninstall the app from the emulator. then walah!! everything will works fine

I solved the problem like this:
mHolder.txt_fword.setTextSize(22);
mHolder.txt_farth.setTextSize(22);
mHolder.txt_fdef.setTextSize(22);
mHolder.txt_fdef2.setTextSize(22);
mHolder.txt_frem.setTextSize(22);
//if (fdef2.get(pos).equals("")) mHolder.txt_fdef2.setVisibility(View.GONE);
//if (frem.get(pos).equals("")) mHolder.txt_frem.setVisibility(View.GONE);
issue is .setVisibility(View.GONE); , change to .setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);

How to overlay a button programmatically?

What I would like to accomplish is to, at runtime, place a button in the middle of the screen, as the very top layer, overlaying anything below it. (It's not big, so it will not completely cover the screen, just whatever happens to be below it.)
I looked at creating a custom dialog, however that blocks all other user input. I want all of the views below this new button to act normally and respond to the user, but I just want to add (and later remove) the button above everything.
Hopefully that makes sense. I'm just wondering what might be the best approach to look into?

Use a FrameLayout, with the button as it's 2nd child. Set it to GONE when you don't want it visible.

I had to overlay a simple layout programmatically on top of any visible activity. Normal activity layout xmls don't know anything about the overlay. Layout had one textview component but could have any structure you see fit. This is my overlay layout.
res/layout/identity.xml
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:id="#+id/identitylayout"
android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_centerInParent="true" >
<TextView
android:id="#+id/identityview"
android:padding="5dp"
android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:textColor="#FFFFFF" android:background="#FF6600"
android:textSize="30dp"
/>
</RelativeLayout>
Overlay is shown on top of the existing content, after timeout is deleted from the screen. Application calls this function to display overlay.
private void showIdentity(String tag, long duration) {
// default text with ${xx} placeholder variables
String desc = getString(R.string.identity);
desc = desc.replace("${id}", reqId!=null ? reqId : "RequestId not found" );
desc = desc.replace("${tag}", tag!=null ? tag : "" );
desc = desc.trim();
// get parent and overlay layouts, use inflator to parse
// layout.xml to view component. Reuse existing instance if one is found.
ViewGroup parent = (ViewGroup)findViewById(R.id.mainlayout);
View identity = findViewById(R.id.identitylayout);
if (identity==null) {
LayoutInflater inflater = (LayoutInflater)getSystemService(Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
identity = inflater.inflate(R.layout.identity, parent, false);
parent.addView(identity);
}
TextView text = (TextView)identity.findViewById(R.id.identityview);
text.setText(desc);
identity.bringToFront();
// use timer to hide after timeout, make sure there's only
// one instance in a message queue.
Runnable identityTask = new Runnable(){
#Override public void run() {
View identity = findViewById(R.id.identitylayout);
if (identity!=null)
((ViewGroup)identity.getParent()).removeView(identity);
}
};
messageHandler.removeCallbacksAndMessages("identitytask");
messageHandler.postAtTime(identityTask, "identitytask", SystemClock.uptimeMillis()+duration);
}
Timer messageHandler is member of main Activity instance (private Handler messageHandler) where I put all scheduled tasks. I am using Android 4.1 device lower than that I don't know what happens.