In my app, I am trying to run multiple photos through a photo editor (one at a time). I have it set up in a for-loop at the moment, but I feel like it is overloading the photo editor and not actually waiting until the current edit session is over, so I wanted to put a control statement in my for-loop to check if the session was still active.
Is this possible?
Easier to tell when the current is over than polling to see if it is still active. If you start it with startActivityForResult, your calling activity will be notified when the invoked activity ends.
Have a look at Starting Activities and Getting Results in the Activity docs for an example.
You might also want to consider running this in an async task. This will pull your heavy processing away from the UI thread. Async task let's you do progress updates as well.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/AsyncTask.html
public class MainActivity extends ListActivity {
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.logo_page);
// Call async task.
my_async as = new my_async(this);
as.execute();
}
--
my_async:
public class my_async extends AsyncTask<Object, Integer, String> {
private parentClass activity;
public my_async (parentClass activity) {
this.activity = activity;
}
#Override
protected String doInBackground(Object... arg0) {
// Do stuff
return "MyString";
}
protected void onPostExecute(String contents) {
activity.contents = contents;
}
Related
Im just wondering what would be the best and possibly easiest way to do this. I have two activites LoginAcitivty and Main Activity.
Ive coded an AsyncTask in my MainActivity as an inner class which sends updates to a web service. When i click the logout button of the MainActivity this returns the app to the Login Activity. Is it possible to still run the ASyncTask even though there is a different activity running or is there another way to do something like this?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated
Thanks
The Asynctask is tied to the "Entity" that created it, in your case it would be the MainActivity, so it will not survive the destroy of your activity (I trust you call the finis() method of the main activity once the user logs out)
What you can do is use a service that runs in background and use the async task to poll your server:
The service shall look like this:
public class PollService extends Service {
#Override
public void onCreate() {
super.onCreate();
}
public void onStart(Intent intent, int startId) {
(new PollAsyncTask(this)).execute();
}
//callback used to retrieve the result from the asynctask
void callBack(String result) {
//here is your logic, taking the result back from the async task
//eventually re-run the asynctask
(new PollAsyncTask(this)).execute();
}
#Override
public IBinder onBind(Intent intent) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
return null;
}
}
The AsyncTask shall look like this:
private class PollAsyncTask extends AsyncTask<String, Void, String> {
private PollService caller;
PollAsyncTask(PollService caller) {
this.caller = caller;
}
#Override
protected String doInBackground(String... params) {
//do your polling here and return something meaningful to the service,
return SOMETHING_REFERRING_TO_THE_1_OF_3;
}
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(String result) {
//Give the result back to the caller:
this.caller.callBack(result);
}
#Override
protected void onPreExecute() {//nothing special here}
#Override
protected void onProgressUpdate(Void... values) {//nothing special here}
}
That way your async task will poll your server whatever activity is currently in foreground.
The service shall be started by your first activity when it is run the first time (i.e. in the onCreate method):
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
if (savedInstanceState==null) {//only the first time
Intent serviceIntent = new Intent();
serviceIntent.setAction("com.yourcompany....PollService");
startService(serviceIntent);
}
}
Hope this helps.
For what I understand, you have an inner Class in your MainActivity.
So just make your AsyncTask in a separate Class and you can call it from both Activites.
Like: new YourAsyncTask().execute();
Greetings.
This question has to do with an AsyncTask that needs to kill a ProgressDialog. While the task is running, the activity gets destroyed and recreated (phone rotation, for example). A new dialog gets made with the help of onSaveInstanceState() but the AsyncTask, spawned by the previously destroyed activity, can't see it.
Picture, if you will... (quick mockup code for example's sake).
public class Bob extends Activity {
private ProgressDialog m_d;
public void onCreate(Bundle b) {
m_d = new ProgressDialog(this);
// ...
if (b != null) {
if (b.getBoolean("dialog") == true)
m_d.show();
}
// ...
}
public void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle b) {
super.onSaveInstanceState(b);
b.putBoolean("dialog", (m_d.isShowing()));
}
public void onDestroy() {
if (m_d.isShowing()) {
m_d.dismiss();
m_d = null;
}
//...
}
}
The AsyncTask onPreExecute() does m_d.show() and onPostExecute() does m_d.hide().
The problem is when my activity gets recreated (say, on phone rotation), the AsyncTask seems to have the old m_d. It is null, because that got killed in onDestroy().
It doesn't have the new m_d, created when the activity got recreated. So now I have a ProgressDialog and the guy who was supposed to kill it in onPostExecute() can't see it.
Now what? I need the old AsyncTask to somehow signal the new ProgressDialog to go away.
private OnItemSelectedListener onSpinnerSelection = new OnItemSelectedListener() {
public void onItemSelected(AdapterView<?> arg0, View arg1, int arg2, long arg3) {
// ...
new Switcharoo().execute();
}
}
private class Switcharoo extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void> {
protected void onPreExecute() {
m_d.show();
// ...
}
protected void onPostExecute() {
if (m_d != null) m_d.hide();
// ...
}
protected Void doInBackground(Void... arg0) {
// ...
}
}
If Android doesn't kill my activity while the task is running, it's fine. The ProgressDialog pops up and goes away like I expect.
If Android decides to restart my activity for any reason while the task is running, m_d will be null in onPostExecute() even though I recreated it in onCreate() - it has the old m_d, not the new one.
There are two problems: the first is that the AsyncTask is bound to the activity that has created it. I mean, the instance of the activity.
If you want it to survive between activities rotations you have to store it somewhere else (check this for example). In any case, you need to have a reference to it from the new activity (another thing you could do is to use a model fragment, i.e. a fragment with no UI that you set as setRetainInstance(true)).
Once you have the reference to the async task from the newly created activity, nothing prevents you to have m_d local to the async task and a setter method that updates it with the new dialog.
Note also that it would be a good practice to have weak references pointing to the activity and the dialog itself in order to allow garbage collection. Otherwise the dialog (and probably the activity itself) would not be freed until the execution of the task itself ended.
I've seen few questions nearly identical to mine, but I couldn't find a complete answer that satisfies all my doubts.. so here I am.. Suppose that you have an activity with an inner class that extends the AsyncTask class like this:
public class MyActivity extends Activity {
private class DownloadImageTask extends AsyncTask<String, Void, Bitmap> {
protected Bitmap doInBackground(String... urls) {
return DownloadImage(urls[0]);
}
protected void onPostExecute(Bitmap result) {
ImageView img = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.img);
img.setImageBitmap(result);
}
}
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
new DownloadImageTask().execute("http://mysite.com/image.png")
}
}
Suppose that the activity is paused or destroyed (maybe the two cases are different) while the DownloadImageTask is still running in background.. then, the DownloadImageTask's methods that run on the activity UI thread can be triggered and the DownloadImageTask may try to access Activity's methods (it is an inner class, so it can access the methods and instance variables of the outer class) with a paused or destroyed Activity, like the call to findViewByID in the example below.. what happens then? Does it silently fail? Does it produce any exception? Will the user be notified that something has gone wrong?
If we should take care that the launching thread (the Activity in this case) is still alive when running-on-UI methods are invoked, how can we accomplish that from within the AsyncTask?
I'm sorry if you find this as a duplicate question, but maybe this question is a bit more articulated and someone can answer with greater detail
Consider this Task (where R.id.test refers to a valid view in my activity's layout):
public class LongTaskTest extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void>{
private WeakReference<Activity> mActivity;
public LongTaskTest(Activity a){
mActivity = new WeakReference<Activity>(a);
}
#Override protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) {
LogUtil.d("LongTaskTest.doInBackground()");
SystemClock.sleep(5*60*1000);
LogUtil.d("mActivity.get()==null " + (mActivity.get()==null));
LogUtil.d("mActivity.get().findViewById(R.id.frame)==null " + (mActivity.get().findViewById(R.id.test)==null));
return null;
}
}
If I run this task from an Activity's onCreate like so:
public class Main extends Activity {
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle state) {
super.onCreate(state);
setContentView(R.layout.testlayout);
new LongTaskTest(this).execute();
finish();
}
}
No matter how long I sleep the background thread, my log always shows:
LongTaskTest.doInBackground()
mActivity.get()==null false
mActivity.get().findViewById(R.id.frame)==null false
Which is to say that the activity and its views appear to stay alive (even if I manually issue GCs via DDMS). If I had more time I'd look at a memory dump, but otherwise I don't really know why this is the case ... but in answer to your questions it appears that:
Does it silently fail? No
Does it produce any exception? No
Will the user be notified that something has gone wrong? No
The doInBackground() will keep on running even if your Activity gets destroyed(i,e your main thread gets destroyed) because the doInBackground() method runs on the worker's/background thread. There will be a 'problem' in running the onPostExecute() method as it runs on the main/UI thread and you may experience running into unrelated data but there will be no exception shown to the user. Thus, it is always better to cancel your AsyncTask when your activity gets destroyed as there is no reason to run AsyncTask when the Activity is no longer present. Use android Service if you continuously want to download something from the network even when your Component/Activity gets destroyed. Thanks.
I'm writing an Android app that connects to a Bluetooth device, reads in data, and graphs it in the main Activity using AChartEngine (this entire part works).
I want to include a second Activity, which contains a WebView (powered by PhoneGap). When a button is pressed in the main Activity, the second Activity should open while the initial one continues to be alive in the background and the AChartEngine graph continues to be updated.
My current code approaches this problem using an AsyncTask, which works fine before the app starts accepting and graphing data over Bluetooth. After that happens, when I press the button to open the second Activity, the entire application crashes.
How do I show one Activity in the foreground while manipulating another Activity in the background? I've considered that the limit on the number of AsyncTasks open could be causing this issue, since I create a new AsyncTask for every data point I receive in order to add it to the graph asynchronously, but the number open at any time seems to be well under the limit.
Here are the relevant parts of my current code:
public class viewer extends Activity
{
/* ... */
public void handleButtonPress() {
// called when our button is pressed
new StartWebview(viewer.this).execute();
}
protected class StartWebview extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void> {
public Activity activity;
public StartWebview(Activity activity) {
this.activity = activity;
}
#Override
protected Void doInBackground(Void... values) {
Intent i = new Intent(viewer.this, WebActivity.class);
activity.startActivity(i);
return null;
}
}
protected class NewPoints extends AsyncTask<Double, Void, Void> { // called each time we receive a new data point
#Override
protected Void doInBackground(Double... values) {
mCurrentSeries.add(values[0], values[1]); // x, y
if (mChartView != null) {
mChartView.repaint();
}
return null;
}
}
}
public class WebActivity extends DroidGap
{
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
super.loadUrl("file:///android_asset/www/index.html");
}
}
Once an activity is no longer shown, it entirely possible for Android to destroy it completely.
You should be doing your data collection from a foreground service putting the data into a persistant data store like a contentprovider backed by sqlite database.
Then use a loader to fetch the data and provide it to your charting tool. The content provider will be notified each time new data arrives in the database automatically.
This might sound overkill, but you'd be loosing all your data and potentially crashing anyway even on a simple screen rotation.
I am calling a subactivity from main activity. This subactivity should take few numbers from user (i'm using Edit text control to achieve this), save them to static variable in another class and terminate. I want main activity to wait for subactivity but both are just running simultaneously. Even doing sth like that doesn't help:
Thread t = new Thread(new Runnable(){
public void run(){
Log.v("==================", "run "+new Date());
startActivityForResult(new Intent(ctx,myCustomSubactivity.class),1);
} });
Log.v("==================", "calling run "+new Date());
t.start();
try {
t.join();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {Log.v("==================", "can't join");}
Log.v("==================", "back from activity "+new Date());
do you know how to force main activity to wait? Thread.wait() method is not supported in Android(program throws error).
May be I'm missing something but why don't just use startActivityForResult and onActivityResult mechanism? You could get result from you subactivity from intent it was resulted with.
Edit: BTW as far as I understand, if you will run Object.wait() from Activity code if will hold UI tread whitch can result in Application not responding error.
I agree with Nikolay this is definitely the android way to do this.
Start the subactivity with startActivityForResult in the sub activity use setResult to add an result code and an intent with all the numbers you need in the data bundle.
In your first activity overwrite onActivityResult and retrieve the numbers from the Intent.
If you use the static variable this seems easier in the first moment but it is very insecure and there are some cases this may not work. If your program is send to the background your activities will be saved but if the phone runs low on memory the system will close your program and after the user resumes it everything looks like the moment the user left it but the static variables will be recreated to their initialization value.
Try to get used to the way the android activity lifecycle works. Using this approach will result in fewer used memory and a much better user experience.
Check out the Notepad example, it covers exactly this situation. And as others have said, the Android way is to have your first activity start up your second activity (not sub-activity!) and asynchronously listen for a response (not pause or wait, no need for joining, etc.).
Well... you can do it like this (btw, there's not straight forward way):
Have a singleton class, let's call it Monitor:
public class Singleton
{
private Singleton() { }
private static Singleton instance = new Singleton();
public static Singleton getInstance() {
return instance;
}
}
public class ParentActivity extends Activity
{
private void startAndWait()
{
Intent i = new Intent();
// initialize i
startActivityForResult(i);
Singleton si = Singleton.getInstance();
synchronized(si)
{
si.wait();
}
//do remaining work
}
}
public class ChildActivity extends Activity
{
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstance)
{
//do all the work
Singleton si = Singleton.getInstance();
synchronized(si)
{
si.notify();
}
}
}
I'm not here to judge if it's a good pattern or not but if you really need an activity to wait for a sub-activity, you can try this approach:
define an object (lock) over which the two activities get synchronized; this can (should) also work as the object to exchange data between those two activities and thus should be defined as static
in parent activity, start an async task (as the UI main thread cannot be in waiting state)
in the async task, start your sub-activity
the async task waits on the lock till it gets notified
the sub-activity does whatever it needs and notifies the waiting thread when it finishes
I did a similar thing in my app and IMHO had a good reason for this (not to bother a user with login screen upon app start or resume, the app tries to re-use credentials stored in a secured place and only in case it fails, it shows this login screen. So yes, basically any activity in my app can get "paused" and waits till the user provides correct credentials in the login activity upon which the login screen finishes and the app continues exactly where it got paused (in the parent activity).
In the code it would be something like this:
ParentActivity:
public class ParentActivity extends Activity {
private static final String TAG = ParentActivity.class.getSimpleName();
public static class Lock {
private boolean condition;
public boolean conditionMet() {
return condition;
}
public void setCondition(boolean condition) {
this.condition = condition;
}
}
public static final Lock LOCK = new Lock();
#Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.parent_layout);
// do whatever logic you need and anytime you need to stat sub-activity
new ParentAsyncTask().execute(false);
}
private class ParentAsyncTask extends AsyncTask<Boolean, Void, Boolean> {
#Override
protected Boolean doInBackground(Boolean... params) {
// do what you need and if you decide to stop this activity and wait for the sub-activity, do this
Intent i = new Intent(ParentActivity.this, ChildActivity.class);
startActivity(i);
synchronized (LOCK) {
while (!LOCK.conditionMet()) {
try {
LOCK.wait();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
Log.e(TAG, "Exception when waiting for condition", e);
return false;
}
}
}
return true;
}
}
}
ChildActivity:
public class ChildActivity extends Activity {
#Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.child_layout);
// do whatever you need in child activity, but once you want to finish, do this and continue in parent activity
synchronized (ParentActivity.LOCK) {
ParentActivity.LOCK.setCondition(true);
ParentActivity.LOCK.notifyAll();
}
finish();
// if you need the stuff to run in background, use AsyncTask again, just please note that you need to
// start the async task using executeOnExecutor method as you need more executors (one is already occupied), like this:
// new ChildAsyncTask().executeOnExecutor(ChildAsyncTask.THREAD_POOL_EXECUTOR, false);
}
}