Develop Reference

Visibility of ProgressBar

I need to process some data when the user click the button in one activity, so the screen looks like the app stops for 2-3 seconds. It isn't a lot but I want to give the user information that everything is ok and IMO the best way will be the progressbar which is visible only when data are processed.
I found the code of ProgressBar and it looks like this:
<ProgressBar
android:id="#+id/loadingdata_progress"
style="?android:attr/progressBarStyle"
android:layout_width="50dp"
android:layout_height="50dp"
android:layout_alignBottom="#+id/fin2_note"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:indeterminate="true"
android:visibility="invisible" />
and inserted it on the middle of my layout.
And to try if the progressbar works, I put this code
loadingimage= (ProgressBar) findViewById(R.id.loadingdata_progress);
loadingimage.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
into onCreate method and everything looks fine.
Then I recreated the code to show this progressbar only if the data is processed.
After click the user invoke this method
public void fin2_clickOnFinalization(View v)
{
loadingimage= (ProgressBar) findViewById(R.id.loadingdata_progress);
loadingimage.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
// code where data is processing
loadingimage.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
}
and nothing appear on the screen. I don't know where is the mistake. If I found the progress bar by id, It's strange for me that I can control it in onCreate method but in onclick method it's out of my control.

Your UI thread cannot show progress bar cause it is busy due to your data processing. Try to use this kind of code :
public void fin2_clickOnFinalization(View v) {
new YourAsyncTask().execute();
}
private class YourAsyncTask extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void> {
#Override
protected Void doInBackground(Void... args) {
// code where data is processing
return null;
}
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(Void result) {
loadingimage.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
super.onPostExecute(result);
}
#Override
protected void onPreExecute() {
super.onPreExecute();
loadingimage.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
}
}
EDIT:
AsyncTask let you run code in separate thread and make app more responsive, just put time-consuming code inside doInBackground.

You're not giving the UI time to refresh. Your "data processing" code is running on the UI thread, blocking any visible changes. By the time the system gets control to refresh the display, you've already set it back to invisible.
To fix this, move your processing code to a separate thread or AsyncTask. Then you can set the progress bar to visible, start the task, and have it turn itself invisible once it's done.
I'd recommend AsyncTask for this purpose about 90% of the time on Android, since it comes stock with useful callbacks. The developer guide for it(in the Javadoc linked above) is pretty explicit, and outlines all the steps you need to take.

AsyncTask is too heavily-weighted for such task.
A better much solution
Handler handler = new Handler(getMainLooper());
handler.post(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
loadingimage.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
}
});
Or even simpler (does essentially the same thing as solution above)
runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
loadingimage.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
}
});

You can try to create a global ProgressDialog not in the layout but in your activity like:
public class MyActivity {
ProgressDialog progress = null;
protected void onCreate(...) {
progressDialog = new ProgressDialog(this);
progressDialog.setCancelable(false);
progressDialog.setTitle("Progress");
}
public void fin2_clickOnFinalization(View v)
{
progress.show();
// code where data is processing
progress.dismiss();
}
}
Hope i it helps

AsyncTask gets out of step when hitting Home button over and over again

I have an AsyncTask which does a lot of JSON calculations.
public class InitializationTask extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, InitializationResult> {
private ProcessController processController = new ProcessController();
private ProgressDialog progressDialog;
private MainActivity mainActivity;
public InitializationTask(MainActivity mainActivity) {
this.mainActivity = mainActivity;
}
#Override
protected void onPreExecute() {
super.onPreExecute();
progressDialog = new ProgressDialog(mainActivity);
progressDialog.setMessage("Die Daten werden aufbereitet.\nBitte warten...");
progressDialog.setIndeterminate(true); //means that the "loading amount" is not measured.
progressDialog.setCancelable(false);
progressDialog.show();
};
#Override
protected InitializationResult doInBackground(Void... params) {
return processController.initializeData();
}
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(InitializationResult result) {
super.onPostExecute(result);
progressDialog.dismiss();
if (result.isValid()) {
mainActivity.finalizeSetup();
}
else {
AlertDialog.Builder dialog = new AlertDialog.Builder(mainActivity);
dialog.setTitle("Initialisierungsfehler");
dialog.setMessage(result.getReason());
dialog.setPositiveButton("Ok",
new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
#Override
public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
dialog.cancel();
mainActivity.finish();
}
});
dialog.show();
}
}
}
processController.initializeData() runs for about 20 seconds. All this works. It even works when I install the application, and pressing home button while application is initializing. The AsyncTask is working in the background. When I restart the application from Android device again after the AsyncTask has been finished, the application still works.
But the application cannot handle this use case: When I deploy the application (or start it when no data is initialized), so that it really takes about 20sec to initialize the data and when I hit home to close the application while initialization (the AsyncTask) runs in the background and start the application again, it leads to unexpected behavior as RuntimExceptions and so on. It seems that the device wants to load the application twice, but none of them can start successfully. How to deal with that?
I thought about checking if there is a running AsyncTask in MainActivity to avoid starting it again:
private InitializationTask initializationTask = new InitializationTask(this);
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
if (!AsyncTask.Status.RUNNING.equals(initializationTask.getStatus())) {
initializationTask.execute((Void[])null);
}
initializeMap();
}
Unfortunately this does do nothing. Moreover I'm not sure if such use case is possible at all, because when I start the same application twice, they cannot "share" an AsyncTask. Should I somehow avoid starting the application twice or something? I'm not sure what options do I have on this? Any ideas?

I usually do it a bit more bluntly. I set my AsyncTask reference to null when I'm not using it. When the onClick fires, I check if it's not null, which means I started it. If it is null, I create and execute a new AsyncTask right there. It is plenty fast and it's clean enough. One bonus of this approach is that an AsyncTask can only be executed once anyway, so it fits in well with that. At the end of onPostExecute, you can set the reference back to null again if you intend to stay in the same Activity.
While you're perfecting your AsyncTask flow, make sure that it survives orientation changes as well.

I found the solution: It's actually not an AsyncTask issue. The problem was that my parse method of JSONParser (that does the most of the work) which is invoked in processController.initializeData(), was not synchronized.

Android: Fill a Spinner with progress dialog

I have a button, and when I clicked on it, I load other Activity, onCreate of this I call a method that fills a spinner with data from a Web Service.
Well, When I click at this button the screen stay "frozen" and then shows the Activity. So, I thought that it could be a good thing shows a progress dialog for user, and after gets the return of the Web Service, ends the progress dialog.
I tried use Handler, and now I'm trying to use AsyncTask, but, geting NullPointerException, because my program is filling spinner before web service get called.
private void fillSpinner(){
//runWebService();
new CallWebServiceAsyncTask().execute(null);
mAdapter = new PlanesAdapter(this, allPlanes);
mList.setAdapter(mAdapter);
}
class CallWebServiceAsyncTask extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void> {
private ProgressDialog progressDialog;
#Override
protected void onPreExecute() {
progressDialog = new ProgressDialog(PlanesActivity.this);
progressDialog.setMessage("Loading...");
progressDialog.show();
}
#Override
protected Void doInBackground(Void... v) {
runWebService();
return null;
}
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(Void result) {
progressDialog.dismiss();
}
}

because my program is filling spinner before web service get called.
you should fill data after getting data in onPostExecute Method
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(Void result) {
progressDialog.dismiss();
mAdapter = new PlanesAdapter(this, allPlanes);
mList.setAdapter(mAdapter);
}

What #SamirMangroliya suggested is correct but you even need to know where you are going wrong. When you call an AsyncTask you are asking the application to do some actions in the background which will take place in the non-UI thread. Now when you call execute() on your AsyncTask object the application code written in the function doInBackground(Void... v) runs in background and your control returns to the next statement following the call to execute() [new CallWebServiceAsyncTask().execute(null)], which in your case is the action of filling the adapter values. These values are yet to be received from the webservice. The only place where you can be sure that your background action is completed is the function onPostExecute(Void result) where as suggested you can create your adapter.

activity loads xml from server before displaying using TabActivity

I am using a TabActivity with 4 separate Activities - one for each tab.
One of the Activities is a ListView that has a custom ArrayAdapter.
The issue is that when I press the Tab to change to this view, the Activity loads the content in before the view changes, this appears as though nothing happens for a couple of seconds until the xml is loaded and parsed etc.
I have looked for an example but this is my first Android appllication and I am having difficulty in understanding the flow.
Can anyone point me to some code that will allow me to instantly change the view (I can inform user content is loading) while loading the content in the background thread
thank you
EDIT - I am porting code over from an existing iOS app - I wasn't able to better articulate the problem as I didn't realise how the UI thread could be blocked in this situation, and due to the complexity of the existing code and deadline I didn't want to change the structure too much.
I narrowed down the issue before I saw your code Jennifer but it is the solution I used so Ill mark yours as right.
here is what I used if it helps anyone else, I had to put the function I called to trigger the data load onto a background thread and then display the content when that thread had done its work
This class was declared within my
public class TableView extends ListActivity
Which was hard for me to get my head around having not done this before ;)
public class GetContentTask extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void> {
private ProgressDialog pdialog;
#Override
protected void onPreExecute(){
super.onPreExecute();
pdialog = new ProgressDialog(TableView.this);
pdialog.setTitle(progressDialogTitle);
pdialog.setMessage(progressDialogMessage);
pdialog.show();
}
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(Void result){
super.onPostExecute(result);
setUpAndLoadList(); // the function to display the list and fill it with content
pdialog.dismiss();
}
#Override
protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) {
doInitialLoad(); // The function to load any xml data from server
return null;
}
}

You can use a progress Dialog (can inform user content is loading)
ProgressDialog dialog;
private class XMLOperation extends AsyncTask<String, Void, String> {
/*
* (non-Javadoc)
*
* #see android.os.AsyncTask#onPreExecute()
*/
#Override
protected void onPreExecute() {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
super.onPreExecute();
System.out.println("onPreExecute");
dialog= ProgressDialog.show(mContext, "", "Loading Content....");
dialog.setCancelable(false);
}
#Override
protected String doInBackground(String... urls) {
//do your Background task
}
protected void onPostExecute(String result) { //dismiss dialog
try {
if(dialog.isShowing()){
dialog.dismiss();
}
} catch (Exception exception) {
dialog.dismiss();
}
}

Use AsyncTask, or (possibly) a separate thread.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/AsyncTask.html
I would also throw in my 2 cents and say don't use TabActivity. Just have your own buttons that look like tabs, but that's not really critical to this topic.

Show a progress bar when an Activity is loading

I have a ListActivity which launches another Activity based on the list selection. This second Activity needs to load a fair bit of data from the internet and as such there is a noticeable delay between when the user clicks on an item and when the Activity displays.
This is a problem because I currently have no way to indicate to the user that their click is being processed (even just changing the colour of the selected list item would be sufficient but I can't find a good way to do that). Ideally I'd be able to display an indeterminate ProgressDialog while the second Activity is loading.
I've tried a few different approaches for this but nothing seems to work as desired.
I've tried the following:
Retrieving the serializable data (not all of it but some part) in an AsyncTask in the first Activity and passing it as an extra to the second. This didn't really work well as a ProgressDialog I created in onPreExecute() didn't display immediately (it seems delayed by the processing done in doInBackground() for some reason.)
Here is the code for that:
AsyncTask<String, Void, String> read = new AsyncTask<String, Void, String>() {
Dialog progress;
#Override
protected void onPreExecute() {
progress = ProgressDialog.show(SearchActivity.this,
"Loading data", "Please wait...");
super.onPreExecute();
}
#Override
protected String doInBackground(String... params) {
DatasetReader reader = new DatasetReader();
reader.setFundID(params[0]);
reader.addDatsets(FundProfile.datasets);
reader.populate();
return reader.toString();
}
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(String result) {
super.onPostExecute(result);
progress.dismiss();
}
};
read.execute(selectedItem.getUniqueID());
try {
action = new Intent(SearchActivity.this, FundProfile.class);
action.putExtra("data", read.get());
} catch(Exception ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
In the second Activity's onCreate() method (this does not work at all):
requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_INDETERMINATE_PROGRESS);
setProgressBarVisibility(true);
Here is the onCreate() method for the second approach:
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
this.setTitleColor(Color.WHITE);
requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_INDETERMINATE_PROGRESS);
setProgressBarVisibility(true);
try {
setContentView(R.layout.fund_profile);
// init some data
setProgressBarVisibility(false);
} catch(Exception ex) {
FundProfile.this.finish();
}
}

If you have long operations you should not be doing them in onCreate in any case as this will freeze the UI (whether or not the activity is displayed). The UI set by onCreate will not appear and the UI will be unresponsive until after the onCreate call finishes.
It seems you can start your second activity and display a progress bar (or requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_INDETERMINATE_PROGRESS);), then start an ASyncTask which will be responsible for updating your UI once data has been retrieved.

Adam,
It sounds like you are looking for the Indeterminate Progress bar: http://developer.android.com/resources/samples/ApiDemos/src/com/example/android/apis/view/ProgressBar2.html
You can display this while you are loading your second Activity then set the visibility to false once the second Activity has loaded its data.

Move creating the Intent -- and really anything you need to do after the AsyncTask completes -- into onPostExecute:
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(String result) {
super.onPostExecute(result);
progress.dismiss();
Intent action = new Intent(SearchActivity.this, FundProfile.class);
action.putExtra("data", result);
// ... do more here
}
The problem is that AsyncTask.get() blocks until the task is completed. So in the code above, the UI thread is blocked and the ProgressDialog is never given a chance to appear until the task completes.