Java-based Android application -> switch to Scala - java

I have a Java Android application which I want to change to Scala. I have many fragments and I want to know what is the best way to do this in Scala.
This is my Java fragment class MyFragment:
public class MyFragment extends Fragment {
private WebView myWebView;
private TextView myTextView;
#Override
public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
Bundle savedInstanceState) {
View myView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.my_view, container, false);
myWebView = (WebView) myView.findViewById(R.id.my_webview);
myWebView.loadUrl("http://www.google.com/");
myTextView = (TextView) myView.findViewById(R.id.my_textview);
myTextView.setText("Google.com");
return myView;
}
}
I always have this base structure: some private UI elements which I instantiate in onCreateView, do some things and return the view (Not shown here: in other on* methods I also do some actions with the UI elements).
I found some articles which do a lazy val like described here: http://blog.andresteingress.com/2011/09/20/programming-android-with-scala/
But in my case, this does not work, because I have fragments and not activities. First I have to inflate the main View myView and then I can get the UI elements of it.
What is the best way to do this in Scala?
--- UPDATE ---
My Scala code looks like this at the moment:
class MyFragment extends Fragment {
private var myTextView: TextView = null
override def onCreateView(inflater: LayoutInflater,
container: ViewGroup, savedInstanceState: Bundle): View = {
val myView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.my_view, container, false)
val myWebView = myView.findViewById(R.id.my_webview).asInstanceOf[WebView]
myWebView.loadUrl("http://www.google.com/")
myTextView = myView.findViewById(R.id.my_textview).asInstanceOf[TextView]
myTextView.setText("Google.com")
myView
}
}
So, what can I improve here? myTextView is a private var because I have to access it several methods in this Fragment. It seems I can not do the stuff explained here: http://blog.andresteingress.com/2011/09/20/programming-android-with-scala/ with lazy val TypedActivity and the implicit conversion of OnClickListener, because I use fragments. So how can I get rid of boilerplate code with .asInstanceOf[T] and make it more Scala like?

Based on your updated code I can only make some suggestion to be more "scala-ish"
Use Option instead of null for your members
private var myWebView: Option[WebView] = None
private var myTextView: Option[TextView] = None
To avoid explicit casting of your views in the code, you need to move it elsewhere, but you cant' get rid of it, because the original android API doesn't give you any clue as to the runtime or compiletime type of the returned objects. To overcome this issue, the post you mentioned uses custom-made typed resources and a trait that handles the types from these.
case class TypedResource[T](id: Int)
object TR {
object id {
val my_webview = TypedResource[TextView](R.id.my_webview)
val my_textview = TypedResource[WebView](R.id.my_textview)
//... you must put here all your typed views referenced by id
}
}
trait TypedViewHolder {
def view: View
//the method explicitly casts to the needed resource type based on the argument
def findView[T](tr: TypedResource[T]): T = view.findViewById(tr.id).asInstanceOf[T]
}
object TypedResource {
//this will implicitly convert your views to a corresponding TypedViewHolder
//this lets you avoid explicit type cast to get your view
implicit def view2typed(v: View): TypedViewHolder = new TypedViewHolder { def view = v }
}
Now we can use the above code
val myView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.my_view, container, false)
val myWebView = myView.findView(TR.id.my_webview)
myWebView.loadUrl("http://www.google.com/")
val myTextView = myView.findView(TR.id.my_textview)
myTextView.setText("Google.com")
Putting both things together
class MyFragment extends Fragment {
private var myWebView: Option[WebView] = None
private var myTextView: Option[TextView] = None
override def onCreateView(
inflater: LayoutInflater,
container: ViewGroup,
savedInstanceState: Bundle): View = {
//imports the implicit conversion
import TypedResource._
val myView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.my_view, container, false)
myWebView = Some(myView.findView(TR.id.my_webview))
//now we're using options, so we must call methods on the inner value
//we can use Option.map(...) to do it [see http://www.scala-lang.org/api/current/index.html#scala.Option]
myWebView.map(_.loadUrl("http://www.google.com/"))
myTextView = Some(myView.findView(TR.id.my_textview))
//same as above
myTextView.map(_.setText("Google.com"))
myView
}
}
I hope this helps you out. I'm no expert with android so I can only get so far.

Why don't you simply write the fragment in Scala without bothering about "the best way to do this in Scala"? There might be none.
I'd start with removing public from the class definition and including the other goodies - TypedActivity from the article - in the activity. Then, set up the development environment - the IDE - and run the application. If it works, you're done (with the very first step in the migration). I don't think you need lazy val's from the very beginning.
Do small steps so the migration's easier.

Related

How do I use a custom layout for a carousel item in Android?

I am using this library to put a carousel view in an Android app: https://github.com/ImaginativeShohag/Why-Not-Image-Carousel
I'm also trying to use the showcase type, but a prerequisite to use this type is creating a custom layout for the carousel items.
Creating the layout I understand, but the OP uses this example in Kotlin to show how the custom layout is actually used:
binding.carousel3.carouselListener = object : CarouselListener {
override fun onCreateViewHolder(
layoutInflater: LayoutInflater,
parent: ViewGroup
): ViewBinding? {
return ItemCustomFixedSizeLayout1Binding.inflate(layoutInflater, parent, false)
}
override fun onBindViewHolder(
binding: ViewBinding,
item: CarouselItem,
position: Int
) {
val currentBinding = binding as ItemCustomFixedSizeLayout1Binding
currentBinding.imageView.apply {
scaleType = imageScaleType
// carousel_default_placeholder is the default placeholder comes with
// the library.
setImage(item, R.drawable.carousel_default_placeholder)
}
}
}
val listThree = mutableListOf<CarouselItem>()
for (item in DataSet.three) {
listThree.add(
CarouselItem(
imageUrl = item.first,
caption = item.second
)
)
}
binding.carousel3.setData(listThree)
binding.customCaption.isSelected = true
binding.carousel3.onScrollListener = object : CarouselOnScrollListener {
override fun onScrollStateChanged(
recyclerView: RecyclerView,
newState: Int,
position: Int,
carouselItem: CarouselItem?
) {
if (newState == RecyclerView.SCROLL_STATE_IDLE) {
carouselItem?.apply {
binding.customCaption.text = caption
}
}
}
override fun onScrolled(
recyclerView: RecyclerView,
dx: Int,
dy: Int,
position: Int,
carouselItem: CarouselItem?
) {
// ...
}
}
// Custom navigation
binding.btnGotoPrevious.setOnClickListener {
binding.carousel3.previous()
}
binding.btnGotoNext.setOnClickListener {
binding.carousel3.next()
}
I'm having some trouble figuring out what exactly this code is doing and how it would look in Java. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated!
A Quick Guess
It seems that the listener is providing the callback of Recycler View. If you need me to guess within a second, and I will say the custom view is a Recycler View using listener to allow users to register the Recycler View methods (which is the Adapter using in the RV)
Deep Investigation
1st question: What is the Custom View class for id=carousel3 in KotlinActivity in the sample project
Ans: org.imaginativeworld.whynotimagecarousel.ImageCarousel.
(P.S. identical between activity_kotlin.xml and activity_test.xml)
(Below is a screen cap, don't try to click the links since it will not work :))
Let's got to search ImageCarousel and we will find ImageCarousel.kt. Let's find CarouselListener in there
We can see that when CarouselListener is set, it will immediately assign to adapter?.listener (Just ignore the "?" sign if you are not familiar with Kotlin)
2nd question: What is adapter here?
Ans from the same file:
private var adapter: FiniteCarouselAdapter? = null
3rd question: What is FiniteCarouselAdapter?
Ans: Its a RecyclerView.Adapter
open class FiniteCarouselAdapter(
...
) : RecyclerView.Adapter<FiniteCarouselAdapter.MyViewHolder>() {
Last question: How is it related to FiniteCarouselAdapter#listener/CarouselListener/adapter?.listener?
When the RecyclerView#Adapter requires to call the ViewHolder method, it will call to CarouselListener methods instead.
In FiniteCarouselAdapter:
override fun onBindViewHolder(holder: MyViewHolder, position: Int) {
...
// Init listeners
listener?.onBindViewHolder(
holder.binding,
item,
realItemPosition
)
As CarouselListener is an interface, the method implementation will be defined in the KotlinActivity instead.
In KotlinActivity:
The above code in your question : )

return findViewById() in viewbinding

I am trying to optimize old code. And I am trying to replace findviewbyid with viewbinding.
But how do I return viewbinding id instead of findviewbyid?
private TextView getTextView(int id){
return (TextView) findViewById(id);
}
This is the old code. But I want to apply viewbinding. I want it to work something like this. As I have no idea how to do it.
private TextView getTextView(int id){
return sampleViewBinding(id);
}
How can I achieve this?
The whole point of View Binding is to avoid findViewById() calls. It does it for you automatically. What you are trying to do is treating View Binding like findViewById(). Whenever you need to access any view, all you have to do it call the generated binding class with your id in the camel-case. for e.g main_layout.xml is gonna have a class generated by the name MainLayoutBinding so you are going to access all the view inside your layout by calling the MainLayoutBinding's instance and the id you want to access.
If your layout file name is fragment_dashboard.xml and has within a textview with an Id userNameTvId, then you normally do this without using data binding:
val view = inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_dashboard, container, false)
val textview = view.findViewById(R.id.userNameTvId)
but with viewBinding it is done by chaining. this textview is acceptable through the binding object. The above will be rewritten like this using viewBinding:
val binding = FragmentDashboardBinding.inflate(inflater)
binding.userNameTvId
// to pass a value you can just do
binding.userNameTvId = "SomeOne"
val view = binding.root

Understanding the lifecycle of DataBinding

My Activity:
class PlayerDetails : AppCompatActivity(), View.OnClickListener {
private lateinit var binding: ActivityPlayerDetailsBinding
override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
binding = DataBindingUtil.setContentView(this, R.layout.activity_player_details)
}
I'm trying to understand how the data binding process works, this is how I understand it:
private lateinit var binding: ActivityPlayerDetailsBinding
instantiates the ViewDataBinding object.
binding = DataBindingUtil.setContentView(this,
R.layout.activity_player_details) is in 2 parts:
DataBindingUtil.setContentView(this,
R.layout.activity_player_details) sets the content view to the given layout
It then returns the binding object to the binding variable (binding = ...) which can then be used to access views in the layout.
Is this an accurate way of describing how the code is working? I found the source code for DataBindingUtil.java hard to understand. Mostly because setContentView() is being called even though it appears to be assigned instead binding = ....
DataBindingUtil.setContentView(this, R.layout.activity_player_datails) do almost same thing to return binding object. Although DataBindingUtils.setContentView call activity.setContentView before returning.
Instead, I usually override setContentView to make sure assign binding object into variables and sets content to the given layout.
override fun setContentView(layoutResID: Int) {
binding = DataBindingUtil.inflate(LayoutInflater.from(context), layoutResID, null, false)
super.setContentView(mBinding.root)
}

Intercept every view element being inflated?

I am trying to intercept every view widget that is being inflated in my activity and override the setText functionality of that view if it exists.
So if a TextView has a android:text="bla" in the XML layout i want to be able to intercept that and maybe add a ** at the end of all texts being set from the xml.
One way that seems to be close to what i need is to use a Custom Layout inflator.
LayoutInflaterCompat.setFactory(layoutInflator, InflatorOnSteriods(this))
and the in my InflatorOnSteriods to override onCreateView and then intercept all views there.. this approach doesn't seem to work at all. onCreateView is never called.
I tried also to use cloneInContext
LayoutInflaterCompat.setFactory(layoutInflater.cloneInContext(this), InflatorOnSteriods(this))
But no luck as well, maybe my approach is totally wrong i am also open to a different way where i can intercept all views being presented and to be specific set a certain attribute on that view. It is really important to make sure that i will be the last one changing that view and make sure the system respects my changes and wont override them later.
Update:
Although i don't think its relevant; Code of InflatorOnSteroids.kt
class InflatorOnSteriods(val appCompatActivity: AppCompatActivity) : LayoutInflaterFactory {
override fun onCreateView(parent: View, name: String, context: Context, attrs: AttributeSet): View {
var result: View
if (TextUtils.equals(name, "DebugDrawerLayout")) {
result = ImageView(context, attrs)
}
result = appCompatActivity.onCreateView(name, context, attrs)
if (result == null) {
// Get themed views from app compat
result = appCompatActivity.delegate.createView(parent, name, context, attrs)
}
return result
}
}
After some time troubleshooting my solution i finally managed to achieve what i wanted with the inflator factory solution.
First i create an abstract activity that has a custom inflator set to it.
abstract class SteroidsActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
var mInflater: LayoutInflater? = null
abstract fun getActivityLayout(): Int
override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
mInflater = layoutInflater?.cloneInContext(this)
LayoutInflaterCompat.setFactory(mInflater, InflaterOnSteroids(this))
setContentView(getActivityLayout())
}
override fun getLayoutInflater(): LayoutInflater? {
return mInflater
}
override fun getSystemService(name: String): Any? {
if (name == LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE) {
if (mInflater == null) {
mInflater = super.getSystemService(name) as LayoutInflater
}
return mInflater
}
return super.getSystemService(name)
}
}
Second thing that you need to do is create your custom inflator factory
class InflaterOnSteroids(appCompatActivity1: AppCompatActivity) : LayoutInflaterFactory {
override fun onCreateView(parent: View?, name: String, context: Context, attrs: AttributeSet): View? {
//Do stuff here and return a view
return null
}
}
The problem with my code was that it was always crashing with a weird error that i couldn't troubleshoot until i realised that i need to add a ? after View since i'm using kotlin and parent view can be null :)
Happy programming
Good reference can be found here

How to get current content view in Android programming?

I know that I can set the content of the view in an Android app by saying setContentView(int). Is there a function I can use to know what the current content view is? I don't know if that makes any sense, but what I'm looking for is a function called, say, getContentView that returns an int.
Ideally, it would look like this:
setContentView(R.layout.main); // sets the content view to main.xml
int contentView = getContentView(); // does this function exist?
How would I do that?
Citing Any easy, generic way in Android to get the root View of a layout?
This answer and comments give one method: [Get root view from current activity
findViewById(android.R.id.content)
Given any view in your hierarchy you can also call:
view.getRootView()
to obtain the root view of that hierarchy.
The "decor view" can also be obtained via getWindow().getDecorView(). This is the root of the view hierarchy and the point where it attaches to the window, but I'm not sure you want to be messing with it directly.
You can do making a setter and getter of current view by id only
private int currentViewId = -1;
public void setCurrentViewById(int id)
{
setContentView(id);
currentViewId = id;
}
public int getCurrentViewById()
{
return currentViewId;
}
And then in
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
{
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setCurrentViewById(R.layout.main_layout);
}
Hope this helps.
In an Activity, you can do
View rootView = null;
View currentFocus = getWindow().getCurrentFocus();
if (currentFocus != null)
rootView = currentFocus.getRootView();
As described above, there is also
View decorView = getWindow().getDecorView();
as well as
View decorView = getWindow().peekDecorView();
The difference between the latter two is that peekDecorView() may return null if the decor view has not been created yet, whereas getDecorView() will create a new decor view if none exists (yet). The first example may also return null if no view currently has focus.
I haven't tried out whether the root view and the decor view are the same instance. Based on the documentation, though, I would assume they are, and it could be easily verified with a few lines of code.
if you have two content views then you can put a tag inside the relative layout of each one. and then get the view by tag name. if tag name is the one desire then blablabla. Hope this help for whoever is searching for a solution.

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