Android hourglass

Question

How can I programmatically display an hourglass in an Android application?

Answer 1

You can use a ProgressDialog:

ProgressDialog dialog = new ProgressDialog(this); dialog.setMessage("Thinking..."); dialog.setIndeterminate(true); dialog.setCancelable(false); dialog.show(); 

The above code will show the following dialog on top of your Activity:

Alternatively (or additionally) you can display a Progress indicator in the title bar of your Activity.

You need to request this as a feature near the top of the onCreate() method of your Activity using the following code:

requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_INDETERMINATE_PROGRESS); 

Then turn it on like this:

setProgressBarIndeterminateVisibility(true); 

and turn it off like this:

setProgressBarIndeterminateVisibility(false); 

Answer 2

Here is a simple example of doing it using AsyncTask:

public class MyActivity extends Activity {      protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {          ...          new MyLoadTask(this).execute(); //If you have parameters you can pass them inside execute method      }      private class MyLoadTask extends AsyncTask <Object,Void,String>{                  private ProgressDialog dialog;          public MyLoadTask(MyActivity act) {             dialog = new ProgressDialog(act);         }                 protected void onPreExecute() {             dialog.setMessage("Loading...");             dialog.show();         }                 @Override         protected String doInBackground(Object... params) {                      //Perform your task here....              //Return value ... you can return any Object, I used String in this case              try {                 Thread.sleep(6000);             } catch (InterruptedException e) {                 e.printStackTrace();             }             return(new String("test"));         }          @Override         protected void onPostExecute(String str) {                       //Update your UI here.... Get value from doInBackground ....             if (dialog.isShowing()) {                 dialog.dismiss();             }                    }     }