If you’ve ever worked with Android development before you’ll probably know that once you get it right it can be incredibly rewarding however if you get it wrong it can be a real pain to fix. Sometimes the development also demonstrates the fragmentation of Android and how it can be a great challenge to do something relatively simple because it works differently on different devices.
I recently developed the Keep Calm app for Android that allows users to create Keep Calm and Carry On style posters. The app has been a reasonable success (20,000 downloads in a month) however there has been one major issue: not everyone could save properly. At first I didn’t really understand why this was because all of the testing I had done indicated that the Bitmap object that the image was stored in was being correctly saved to the SD card and it would then appear in the Gallery app. However, this was not the case for everyone.
I soon discovered that it wasn’t a technical issue with my app entirely. The default Gallery app gets a list of files in the various images folders on the SD card each time it loads but the Android system doesn’t always refresh this list of files very often – sometimes only when the device is restarted. Clearly it would have been a major issue for my users to have to restart their phone each time they wanted to view a file so I came up with this solution:
String saved = Images.Media.insertImage(this.getContentResolver(), bitmap, title, description);
Uri sdCardUri = Uri.parse("file://" + Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory());
sendBroadcast(new Intent(Intent.ACTION_MEDIA_MOUNTED, sdCardUri));
The bitmap object is of type Bitmap whereas title and description are both Strings. The sendBroadcast function (your activity inherit it as the class extends Activity, where the function is) then forces the OS to remount the SD card as it would do when the device starts up meaning that your picture will appear in the Gallery app. If you want to prove this to your users you can load up the file in the app:
Intent intent = new Intent();
intent.setAction(android.content.Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
intent.setDataAndType(Uri.parse(saved), "image/*");
startActivity(intent);
This then loads the image up, using an Intent, in whatever the default Gallery app is. Remember that you’ll need to add the android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE to your Android Manifest otherwise the app will fail. The obvious progression of saving is, of course, sharing and Android makes this incredibly easy to do without having to use the APIs of all the various social networks that exist – instead the app can just utilize services provided by other social network apps on the phone. Here is how to do it:
Intent sharingIntent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
sharingIntent.setType("image/png");
sharingIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM, Uri.parse(saved));
startActivity(Intent.createChooser(sharingIntent, "Share image"));
This loads up a menu (unless no options are available other than email) headed with the “Share image” text asking the user what service they would like to share it with. The appropriate app will then launch. Another cool thing I’ve done using a Bitmap is to set the wallpaper. You’ll need to ensure that the Bitmap is double the width of the user’s device and the same height (explained in this Lifehacker article) – this could be done using a Canvas. Here is the code you can use:
WallpaperManager wallpaperM = WallpaperManager.getInstance(this);
wallpaperM.setBitmap(newBitmap);
Like with saving, you’ll need to ensure that you add the android.permission.SET_WALLPAPER t0 your manifest otherwise, again, the app will fail. Hopefully this article has helped you with your projects and if you have any other problems leave me a message in the comments.
