I am trying to understand what does LoaderManager do. Can anyone share an example with it? Must I use them when I create a cursor? If not how should I use? A simple example is very appreciated.
Simply stated, the LoaderManager is responsible for managing one or more Loaders associated with an Activity or Fragment. Each Activity and each Fragment has exactly one LoaderManager instance that is in charge of starting, stopping, retaining, restarting, and destroying its Loaders.
There is a pretty extensive and in-depth blog post on the LoaderManager... check it out here:
Understanding the LoaderManager (part 2)
In simple words:
LoaderManager load the data in background and also look for the changes in it. It provides a simple Api like structure that we don't need to look and observer the data manually.
Examples:
In <android-sdk>\samples folder search for LoaderCursor.java and LoaderThrottle.java this are the to example using CursorLoader class
Just in case if some one is looking for an example of LoaderManager with the custom AsyncTaskLoader look here.
Related
I am somewhat new to Android, and I am writing an app. I am getting to the point where I am starting to more thoroughly test my code, and therefore, I would like to implement the MVP design strategy since it adds more testable layers to the code. One of the supposed benefits of using MVP that I can not seem to understand is how it helps with running AsyncTasks as they are performed dynamically. Since you want to avoid any Android specific components in your Presenter class, how are you supposed to reference the Activity that utilizes the AsyncTasks? Tutorials about MVP show the Presenter object having methods that take in an Activity as a parameter and return to it; however, if your AsyncTask takes a long time and your Activity has been destroyed through something such as rotation change, how do you return to the proper Activity? I currently store my AsyncTask in a Fragment so that it is saved on Orientation Change. I am having a hard time finding a workaround that implements the MVP practice.
To answer your question, there isn't much you can do to avoid passing Android classes to your Presenter class. But instead of passing the Android object as a parameter, add a method to your View class that returns it (e.g. getActivity()).
That said, I strongly suggest you use a Loader instead of an AsyncTask. Loaders were designed specifically for your use-case. They can also run in the background but their lifecycle is tied to the lifecycle of an Activity or Fragment.
If you switch to Loaders, add a method like getLoaderManager() to your View interface.
If I dont miss-understand your question, your are trying to use retained non-UI fragment for long-runing task, right?
Here is my suggestions in your case:
Make ActivityView interface for your Activity
Using WeakReference<ActivityView> to refer your activity inside your Fragment Presenter (to avoid memory leak issue)
When Activity re-created, try to get your retained fragment and reset your Fragment Presenter's ActivityView. You can look at this Google Example to know how to deal with loading data while configuration changed.
In conclusion, just use WeakReference to avoid memory leak issue, and try to re-set your Presenter'sview when activity is recreated
Most the app so far I had created, I fetch the data from Network and store it in a singleton class to share data between Activities, when I'm done with those data, I usually clear those setting it to NULL, its work perfectly well
My Question is which approach is better ??
Use parcelable
Writing in database and Query for it
Singleton classes
When exactly we need to use Loaders ?? Why we can't share the data through Loaders ??
If question is repeated ... Please ignore ??
Answer to first part
Parcelable:
The best way to pass data between Activitys or Fragments is by using Parcelable objects. It is said to be more optimised than Serializable. There are couple of libraries/plugins which can help you create Parcelable objects. Lately I was referred to Parceler, created by John Carl. However, I personally use Android Parcelable code generator by Michal Charmas, plugin for IntelliJ IDEA and Android Studio.
DataBase or SharedPreferences:
Using DataBase or SharedPreferences to pass data between Activitys or Fragments sounds weird, and since they are not designed to be used this way, it will only create a mess.
Singletons:
Read this very informative post Singletons are Pathological Liars.
Conclusion:
I recommend Parcelable or if you want to be real lazy then go for Serializable (it's not terrible but it's not great either, according to most).
Don't mess up your code by using singletons, DataBases, static fields, etc. They will come back and haunt you.
Answer to second part:
When exactly we need to use Loaders
Loaders, which will be AsyncTaskLoader when you use, are basically used for situations where we want to retrieve data from the server (via web API), or doing something in background. It is similar to using Thread or AsyncTask but is very powerful as it isn't destroyed on screen rotation, unlike those two.
You should read How to Use Loaders in Android and Alex Lockwood's posts on Loaders (this is a series of 4 posts. Very detailed and great).
It all depends on the way you want to use the data.If you want to use the data in future, as in after the application is killed and re launched you should save it in a database.
I would prefer parcelable over a singleton as I don't have to bother about clear the data.
According to the Documentation we generally use loaders to load data asynchronously and to monitor a the data source for change. To my understanding you aren't doing either of them, hence loaders are not required in this case.
1.Database: If you are going to use the network data in future or you are going to do some query operation to perform filtration according to requirement,it is preferable to go with db.
2.Singleton Class: Most of the developer use this because it is more efficient,the values can be changed and retrieve easily with the help of getters and setters.
Here is a very cool way of passing data to another activity I read this somewhere else on Stackoverflow and always use it now. It may not fit your use-case but it sounds like it will.
For example, say you want to pass a parcelable "DataModel" from ActivityA to ActivityB.
Inside ActivityB create a public static method called 'start' like this.
private static final String DATAMODEL_KEY = "datamodel_key";
public static void start(Context context, DataModel dataModel) {
Intent intent = new Intent(context, ActivityB.class);
intent.putExtra(DATAMODEL_KEY, dataModel);
context.startActivity(intent);
}
To start ActivityB simply call the 'start' method above like this
ActivityB.start(this, datamodel);
Use 'this' if called from an activity, or 'getActivity()' from with a fragment.
This will contain the code for starting ActivityB inside ActivityB, like the private static final DATAMODEL_KEY field and such. To answer your question though, go with option 1 and use parcelables and try out the code I posted above to help with starting the Activity with the data.
Hope you guys can clarify something for me.
I've been using Android for about 6 months now and I'm still confused about the best way to communicate between Activity and Fragments. I've already read the the info on the android developer site.
Fragment to Activity
Right now I know with 100% absolute certainty that an interface is the best way to communicate from Fragment to Activity. I.e. creating an interface in your Fragment and letting your Activity implement it. This way you can call the method from your interface inside your Fragment and have it handled by the Activity (which implements the interface).
Activity to Fragment
Here's were I'm not sure. The android developer site says that in order to communicate with a Fragment you have to put your objects in a Bundle.
Bundle bundle = new Bundle();
bundle.putInt(SOME_IDENTIFIER, myInt);
Now I've been know to use a Singleton class every now and then when I have quite some functionality that I can separate. Say I have a Singleton called PersistenceService where I handle all of the persistence related stuff, e.g. saving something in the SharedPreferences. The PersistenceService will then hold methods like putMyString(String key, String myString) or putSomeObject(String key, SomeObject someObj). This way a class doesn't have to handle persistence itself but can just call the PersistenceService to do it.
Now say I have to update something in my Fragment, a TextView or something.
This is what I do:
String myString = PersistenceService.getInstance(getActivity()).getMyString(someKey);
textView.setText(myString);
I pass in a context (getActivity()) because I need it to get the SharedPreferences.
Now my actual question is:
Do I retrieve my data in the Activity and pass it to the desired Fragment through its Bundle? Or do I simply reference my Singleton right in my Fragment and access the data there directly.
I'm not stuck or anything, but I'd like to know what you guys would recommend.
Any advice, remarks, info etc. is greatly appreciated.
This is a very broad question, and as the pragmatic thinking and learning book says, the answer to most questions in software is "It all depends!".
And it really does, it really all depends, there's no hard rule in software, "always" and "never" are very powerful words that shouldn't be used in software, so, saying always go for "Bundle" info or Never go for a Singleton is a little bit stupid specifically in software, so, instead of telling you exactly what to use, ask your self what would fit better in your needs taking on count things like, scalability, extensibility manageability, etc. For example:
If you go for Bundle, you give some flexibility to your fragment, you are creating some kind of independent component ready to work with whatever information you provide, on the other hand, if you know that you need that fragment only in that place, and the information you will pass is somehow complex(can't be passed using a bundle), why complicating so much? Just go for the Singleton if it does the job simple and clean.
I hope my point is well explained here, there's no hard rules for one way or another, just be as diligent as possible and don't go one way or another just because of laziness or negligence, instead be analyst if it's worth going one way or another based on your needs, and always take on count that not because you went that way this time it will be true for ALL your scenarios.
Hope it Helps!
Regards!
I use bundle when I want send data from fragment to fragment (from fragment to activity by interface, from activity to fragment by bundle).
If data is used in all fragments singleton is the best way, sometime I use also a istance of data objcet in activity that I manipulate in fragment by public methods of activity but I don't think that this is a best pratic.
Please understand that 2 fragments can’t directly communicate with each other, They will need help of the activity under the context of which they are created. Using an interface :).
Implement the interface in a fragment
interface StartCommunication
Define the interface in the activity whose context fragment is using
public class MainActivity extends Activity implements
SendFragment.StartCommunication
I am new to android programming. I would like to get some advices about AsyncTask. I have created a main activity and one fragment in which i will display content. The use for AsyncTask in my program is to download data from internet. So, the question would be: where it should be? In the fragment's class or activity's?
You have three choices:
You can make it an inner class inside of the Fragment. This is probably OK if this asynchronous task is only specific to the fragment and you won't ever reuse it
You can make it an inner class inside of the Activity. The is better if you have one activity that controls many Fragments that may reuse the same asynchronous task.
You can make it a class of its own if you plan to reuse it in man places in your application or even if you just want it neater. If you do plan on reusing it but the places that are reusing it may need some slight differences, then you might want to abstract it to make it flexible.
Hope that helps.
Please check out this issue: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=20791
The project (https://github.com/kaciula/BugRetain) uses a CursorLoader to take 2 values from a database through a content provider and shows them on screen. The scenario is this: From activity A, go to activity B, switch once the orientation and go back to activity A. The values from db are no longer showing.
Can anyone provide a workaround for this issue? The problem doesn't appear with only CursorLoader but with any loader. As a consequence of this bug, I can't write an app with fragments that use setRetainInstance and is available in both orientations. I really need a workaround until the Android guys fix the issue. Any ideas?
Do not set your fragments as retainable if you use Loaders. If you need to store some data between configuration changes, create another retainable fragment and pass this data to him.
A similar example can be found here: FragmentRetainInstanceSupport. But this example uses extra fragment for threading purposes. In your case this extra fragment will be used as data container.