I’ve been developing a new Android App over the last month, and found/learnt several new ways to do things, mostly from hacking other peoples ideas and code (but isn’t that what everyone does? why reinvent the wheel!) In no particular order…

Loading up PLIST files into Android from assets folder

Using xmlwise, which has a specific ‘plist’ class amongst other useful stuff, loading plist dicts and arrays into a Java map is simple.

public TreeMap getData(Context context) throws XmlParseException, IOException {
    TreeMap<String, Object> tMap = null;
    try {
        //To access files stored in Asset folder you need AssetManager
        AssetManager assetManager = context.getResources().getAssets();
        InputStream inputStream = null;
        BufferedReader br = null;
        try {
           inputStream = assetManager.open("myfile.plist");
           br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(inputStream));
           StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
           String line;
           while ((line = br.readLine()) != null) {
               sb.append(line);
           }
           tMap = new TreeMap(Plist.fromXml(sb.toString()));
        } catch (IOException e) {
           e.printStackTrace();
        } finally {
           br.close();
        }
    } catch (Exception ex) {
        ex.printStackTrace();
    }
    return tMap;
}

Enabling touch and pinch zoom on images in ViewPager

Using TouchImageView from Mike Ortiz, I can overload a standard ImageView and set it as a Drawable to add to the ViewPager adapter. It’s really cool, and by a simple hack of Mike’s code it’s easy to tweak the zoom levels. Double-tap and pinch-control are both implemented and it seems fast and robust. Kudos to Mike.

Adding an Android splash screen, easily…

OK, so not everyone wants one, nor every app need them, but the simplicity of the app I’ve been working on needed some branding to remind the users who brought them this (free) app. First I created an XML resource for the layout (useful if you want a complex splash screen).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    tools:context="org.my.package">

    <ImageView
        android:id="@+id/mylogo_view"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:background="@null"
        android:layout_gravity="center"
        android:src="@drawable/my_logo" />

</LinearLayout>

Then I created a simple class to start on launch, which included a runnable to redirect after short period of time to the main activity.

public class Splash extends Activity {

    //Duration of wait - 1000ms = 1second
    private final int SPLASH_DISPLAY_LENGTH = 1200;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) {
        super.onCreate(icicle);
        //This line is useful if using action bar etc. 
        requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE);
        setContentView(R.layout.splash);
        
        new Handler().postDelayed(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                Intent mainIntent = new Intent(Splash.this, MainActivity.class);
                Splash.this.startActivity(mainIntent);
                Splash.this.finish();
            }
        }, SPLASH_DISPLAY_LENGTH);
    }
}

Finally, adding

android:theme="@android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar.Fullscreen"

to the android manifest gets rid of the title bar. Haven’t worked out if this AND

requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE);

(in the Splash class above) are necessary together or if one will override the other.