Animate ProgressBar update in Android

Question

I am using a ProgressBar in my application which I update in onProgressUpdate of an AsyncTask. So far so good.

What I want to do is to animate the prog

Answer 1

EDIT: While my answer works, Eli Konkys answer is better. Use it.

if your thread runs on the UI thread then it must surrender the UI thread to give the views a chance to update. Currently you tell the progress bar "update to 1, update to 2, update to 3" without ever releasing the UI-thread so it actually can update.

The best way to solve this problem is to use Asynctask, it has native methods that runs both on and off the UI thread:

public class MahClass extends AsyncTask {

    @Override
    protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) {
        while (progressBar.getProgress() < progress) {
            publishProgress();
            try {
                Thread.sleep(10);
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    protected void onProgressUpdate(Void... values) {
        progressBar.incrementProgressBy(1);
    }
}

AsyncTask might seem complicated at first, but it is really efficient for many different tasks, or as specified in the Android API:

"AsyncTask enables proper and easy use of the UI thread. This class allows to perform background operations and publish results on the UI thread without having to manipulate threads and/or handlers."