Option to exclude albums in Phimpme Android Application

In the Phimpme Android Application, users can perform various operations on the albums available such as move, creating a .zip file of the album, rename an album, delete the album and much more. However one another important functionality that has been implemented in the application is the option to exclude album/albums. In this post we will be discussing how we achieved the functionality to exclude albums in Phimpme Android Application.

Step 1

First we need to keep track of the albums selected by the user to exclude. This can be done by storing the selected albums in an Arraylist<Album> which can be referred later when required for the process of exclusion. The storing of the albums can be done with the help of following lines of code.

private int toggleSelectAlbum(int index) {
if (dispAlbums.get(index) != null) {
  dispAlbums.get(index).setSelected(!dispAlbums.get(index).isSelected());
  if (dispAlbums.get(index).isSelected()) selectedAlbums.add(dispAlbums.get(index));
  else selectedAlbums.remove(dispAlbums.get(index));
}
return index;
}

Step 2

After the selected albums are stored in an Arraylist<Album>, a function call of excludeSelectedAlbums() of HandlingAlbums class is done passing in Context as the parameter. In the method excludeSelectedAlbums() the selected albums are retrieved from the Arraylist one by one and another method excludeAlbum() is called with the album, context being passed as the parameters. The code snippet performing the above operation is provided below.

public void excludeSelectedAlbums(Context context) {
for (Album selectedAlbum : selectedAlbums)
  excludeAlbum(context, selectedAlbum);
clearSelectedAlbums();
}

Step 3

Thereafter an instance of class CustomsAlbumHelper is created and excludeAlbum() method is called with path of the album passed as parameter, and the selected album is removed from the list containing the currently displayed albums. Code snippets for the above operations are provided below.

private void excludeAlbum(Context context, Album a) {
CustomAlbumsHelper h = CustomAlbumsHelper.getInstance(context);
h.excludeAlbum(a.getPath());
dispAlbums.remove(a);
}

Step 4

Now in the excludeAlbum() method of CustomsAlbumHelper class a writable instance of albums_settings sqlite database is obtained. A check is performed if the current album is present in the albums table or not, if not then a row representing the current album is created. Thereafter the excluded value for the current album in the table is updated to integer 1 denoting that the album is excluded. The code snippet required for the above mentioned operations are provided below.

public void excludeAlbum(String path) {
  SQLiteDatabase db = this.getWritableDatabase();
  checkAndCreateAlbum(db, path);
  ContentValues values = new ContentValues();
  values.put(ALBUM_EXCLUDED, 1);
  db.update(TABLE_ALBUMS, values, ALBUM_PATH+“=?”, new String[]{    path});
  db.close();
}

This is how we have achieved the functionality of excluding albums in the Phimpme Android application. To get the full source code, please refer to the Phimpme Android GitHub repository listed in the resources section below.

The screenshot for the display of the excluded albums is provided below.

Resources

  1. Android Developer Guide –https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/sqlite.html
  1. Github-Phimpme Android Repository –https://github.com/fossasia/phimpme-android/
  1. Sqlite Operations Tutorial – https://www.androidhive.info/2011/11/android-sqlite-database-tutorial/
Continue ReadingOption to exclude albums in Phimpme Android Application

Option to hide albums in Phimpme Android Application

In Phimpme Android Application, users can perform various operations on the albums available such as move, creating a .zip file for the album, delete the album, exclude an album, rename an album, pin an album to the top and more. However one another important functionality that has been added in the application is the option to hide  album/albums. So in this post I will be discussing how we achieved the functionality to hide albums in Phimpme Android Application.

Step 1

First we need to get the albums which are selected to be hidden. This can be done by storing the selected items in an Arraylist<Album> which will keep track of the users choice to hide albums. This can be achieved with the following lines of code.

private int toggleSelectAlbum(int index) {
if (dispAlbums.get(index) != null) {
  dispAlbums.get(index).setSelected(!dispAlbums.get(index).isSelected());
  if (dispAlbums.get(index).isSelected()) selectedAlbums.add(dispAlbums.get(index));
  else selectedAlbums.remove(dispAlbums.get(index));
}
return index;
}

Step 2

After storing of the albums to be hidden a function hideSelectedAlbums() is called with Context being passed as the parameter. Now inside this function we retrieve the albums looping through the Arraylist that stores the albums to be hidden and call another function hideAlbum() passing in the album and context as the parameters. The code snippet representing the above operation is given below.

public void hideSelectedAlbums(Context context) {
for (Album selectedAlbum : selectedAlbums)
  hideAlbum(selectedAlbum, context);
clearSelectedAlbums();
}

Step 3.

Now a .nomedia file is added to the directories/albums which are to be hidden and the android Media Scanner System service is triggered thereafter. As a result of the presence of the .nomedia file inside the directory the Media Scanner service won’t scan the particular directory/album thereby the album will not be picked up at the time of displaying the albums. The code snippet to perform the mentioned operation is provided below.

File dirName = new File(path);
File file = new File(dirName, “.nomedia”);
if (!file.exists()) {
try {
  FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(file);
  out.flush();
  out.close();
  scanFile(context, new String[]{ file.getAbsolutePath() });
} catch (Exception e) {
  e.printStackTrace();
}
}

The screenshot for the display of hidden folders is provided below.

This is how we have achieved the functionality of hiding albums in the Phimpme Android application. To get the full source code, please refer to the Phimpme Android GitHub repository listed in the resources section below.

Resources

  1. Android Developer Guide – https://developer.android.com/reference/android/media/MediaScannerConnection.html
  2. Github-Phimpme Android Repository –https://github.com/fossasia/phimpme-android/
  3. Hiding directories using .nomedia file – http://www.easycodeway.com/2016/08/hide-files-in-android-using-nomedia-file.html
Continue ReadingOption to hide albums in Phimpme Android Application

Displaying Image location Address In Phimpme Android Application

In Phimpme Android application one of the features available is to view the details of any image. The details consists of attributes including Date and time at which the image was captured, size of the image, title, path, EXIF data, description added to the image, location etc. However in the location attribute the location coordinates of the image as well as the location address can be displayed depending on the user’s preference. The process of obtaining the coordinates from address is called as Geocoding and obtaining string address from coordinates is called reverse Geocoding. So in this post I will be explaining how to implement set of strings denoting the address from the available coordinates.

Step 1

First we need to create an instance of the class Geocoder passing context and function Locale.getDefault() as the parameters.  The function of the attribute Locale.getdefault is provided below.

Locale.getDefault() – It returns the current value of the default locale for the current instance of the Java Virtual Machine. The Java Virtual Machine sets the default locale during startup based on the host environment.The code snippet to perform the above mentioned operation is given below.

Geocoder geocoder = new Geocoder(context, Locale.getDefault());

Step 2

Now a function call of getFromLocation() of the Geocoder class is done where we need to pass the Lattitude and Longitude values of the Location object as parameters. The lattitude and longitudes values can be obtained by the use of the Location object functions getLatitude() and getLongitude() respectively. The function getFromLocation() will return a list of Address objects which will contain the extracted addresses from the passed latitude and longitude values. We also need to pass a third parameter an integer value which will determine the maximum no of addresses to be returned. Here we have requested for a maximum of one address. The following code snippet is used to perform the desired function call.

try {
 List<Address> addressList = geocoder.getFromLocation(location.getLatitude(), location.getLongitude(), 1);
} catch (IOException e) {
  e.printStackTrace();
}

Step 3

After obtaining the list of Address objects returned from the function call of getFromLocation() we will extract the first address from the list since we want a maximum of 1 address. The Address object will contain information like the address name, country, state, postal code etc. Now the set of strings describing the location can be retrieved with the help of the function getMaxAddressLineIndex() of Address class. The code snippets to perform the above mentioned operations is provided below.

ArrayList<String> addresslines = new ArrayList<String>();
Address address = addressList.get(0);
for(int i = 0; i <= address.getMaxAddressLineIndex(); i++) {
  addresslines.add(address.getAddressLine(i));
}
details.put(context.getString(R.string.location), TextUtils.join(System.getProperty(“line.separator”),
      addresslines));

The screenshot displaying the location address is provided below.

This is how we have achieved the functionality of displaying location address in a set of strings from available coordinates in the Phimpme Android application. To get the full source code, please refer to the Phimpme Android GitHub repository listed in the resources section below.

Resources

1.Android Developer Guide – https://developer.android.com/training/location/display-address.html

2.Github-Phimpme Android Repository – https://github.com/fossasia/phimpme-android/

3.Address Class Guide- https://developer.android.com/reference/android/location/Address.html

 

Continue ReadingDisplaying Image location Address In Phimpme Android Application

Option to Print Photos in the Phimpme Android Application

In the Phimpme Android application, users can perform various operations on the photos available such as copy, move, add the image to favourites collection, share the images with others, use it as covers, wallpapers and much more. However one another important functionality that has been added in the Phimpe Android application is printing of images. In this post we will be discussing about the implementation of the above mentioned functionality.

Step 1

First we need to create an instance of the class PrintHelper passing context as the constructor parameter which can be done with the following line of code.

PrintHelper photoPrinter = new PrintHelper(this);

Step 2

Now a  function call of setScalemode() is done where we require passing a parameter out of the two options SCALE_MODE_FIT and SCALE_MODE_FILL. The difference between the two options is explained below.

SCALE_MODE_FIT – This option sizes the image so that the whole image is displayed within the printable area of the page.

SCALE_MODE_FILLThis option scales the image so that it fills the entire printable area of the page. Choosing this setting means that some portion of the top and bottom, or left and right edges of the image is left out. This option is the default value if no scale mode is set.

Though neither of the scaling options alter the existing aspect ratio of the image, we are going with the latter of the two as the requirement here is to display the whole image in the printable area. The following code snippet is used to perform the desired function call.

photoPrinter.setScaleMode(PrintHelper.SCALE_MODE_FIT);

Step 3

After obtaining an instance of the class PrintHelper and calling the function setScalemode with the proper scale parameter, the path of the image to be printed is extracted and is passed in as a parameter to the decodefile function of the class BitmapFactory which has another parameter.

A Bitmap object is the return result of the operation performed by the function decodefile. The Bitmap object is thereafter passed in as a parameter to the printBitmap() function of the PrintHelper class along with a string attribute which will denote the file name of the printed photo. The code snippet to the above mentioned operations are given below.

Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeFile(getAlbum().getCurrentMedia().getPath(), new BitmapFactory.Options());
photoPrinter.printBitmap(getString(R.string.print), bitmap);

After the printbitmap() is called no further action is required from the side of the application. The Android system print interface appears where the users can select the printing options. The user can proceed to print the image or cancel the operation. If the user decides to proceed with the operation a print job is created and printing operation notification appears in the system navigation bar. The system print interface appearing is displayed below.

This is how we have achieved the functionality of printing images in the Phimpme Android application. To get the full source code, please refer to the Phimpme Android GitHub repository listed in the resources section below.

Resources

1.Android Developer Guide – https://developer.android.com/training/printing/index.html

2.Github-Phimpme Android Repository – https://github.com/fossasia/phimpme-android/

3.PrintHelper Class Guide – https://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v4/print/PrintHelper.html

 

Continue ReadingOption to Print Photos in the Phimpme Android Application

Slideshow option in the Phimpme Android Application

The Phimpme Android application along with all the basic features for viewing and sharing images also has some interesting functions, for example, the ability to view all the images at once using the slideshow option. The users can also manage the time duration for which a particular photo will be displayed before switching on to the next image. In this post, we will be discussing how we have achieved this functionality in the Phimpme Android application.

Step 1

First, we have to provide the user with an option to enter the time duration for which they want to view a particular photo. For this, we have made use of the themed dialog box which will take the input from the user and then we will be converting the time entered by them into milliseconds. This can be done by using the following code snippet.

dialog.setButton(DialogInterface.BUTTON_POSITIVE, getString(R.string.ok).toUpperCase(), new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
   @Override
   public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
       String value= editTextTimeInterval.getText().toString();
       if(!"".equals(value))
       {
           slideshow=true;
           int intValue = Integer.parseInt(value);
           SLIDE_SHOW_INTERVAL = intValue * 1000;

Step 2

For changing the photo at a particular duration of time, we need to make use of the Runnable interface in Java, which uses a method run() to execute the tasks. To use it, we have to create a Handler object and initialize it. This can be done using the following lines of the code.

private Handler handler;
handler = new Handler();

After this, we have to define and initialize our Runnable object which will be used later to change the picture. The code snippet for initializing the runnable object is given below.

Runnable slideShowRunnable = new Runnable() {
   @Override
   public void run() {
       try{
           mViewPager.scrollToPosition((getAlbum().getCurrentMediaIndex() + 1) % getAlbum().getMedia().size());
       }
       catch (Exception e) {
           e.printStackTrace();
       }
       finally{
           handler.postDelayed(this, SLIDE_SHOW_INTERVAL);
       }

As the run() method gets executed, the scrollToPosition function of the ViewPager class gets called which changes the position of the image displayed to the next image available.

Step 3

To call the runnable object we created in the second step, we have to use the postDelayed function of the Handler class which takes in a Runnable object and the time in milliseconds as the parameter. The code snippet for this is provided below.

handler.postDelayed(this, SLIDE_SHOW_INTERVAL);

Please note that we have also included the above line of code in the finally block after each successful run of the method because as the slideshow starts, we will have to call this function to scroll to the new position after every finite provided duration.

This is how we have achieved the Slideshow functionality in the Phimpme Android application. To get the full source code for this implementation, please check out the Phimpme Android GitHub repository listed in the resources section below.

Resources

  1. GitHub – Phimpme Android Repository – https://github.com/fossasia/phimpme-android/
  2. Android Developer Guide – Handler class – https://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/Handler.html
  3. StackOverflow – Runnable in Java – https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13327571/in-a-simple-to-understand-explanation-what-is-runnable-in-java
  4. StackOverflow – Image Slideshow in Android – https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2995145/image-slideshow-example-in-android

 

Continue ReadingSlideshow option in the Phimpme Android Application

Compressing Albums in the Phimpme Android Application

The Phimpme Android application comes in with all the functionalities ranging from viewing images to taking photos, editing pictures  and sharing them with the world from within a single application without having to switch to or install other social media apps on your mobile phone. Apart from these basic functionalities, the Phimpme Android app also comes with additional features to enhance user experience like the ability to compress the whole album with a large number of photos so that it becomes easier to share them. In this post, I will be explaining how we achieved this functionality to compress the Albums.

Step 1

The first thing we need to do before compressing an album is to get all the paths of the images in that album and store it in an ArrayList<String> so that it can be used later for the compression process. This can be done using the code snippet provided below, it stores all the paths of the file in a particular folder whose name ends with .jpg

path = new ArrayList<>();
File folder = new File(getAlbums().getSelectedAlbum(0).getPath() + "/");
File[] fpath = folder.listFiles();
for(int i = 0; i < fpath.length; i++){
   if(fpath[i].getPath().endsWith(".jpg") ){
       path.add(fpath[i].getPath());
   }
}

Step 2

Since the compression is a heavy task, we can make use of an AsyncTask to run the task on the background thread so that the user experience is not at all hampered. In the onPreExecute method of the AsyncTask, we need to display the Notification that the compression of the particular album has started, for this we have made use of the Notification handler class that we have created in the Phimpme Android application to ease the process of displaying the notification and to avoid repetition of codes. The onPreExecute method of the AsyncTask is given below.

@Override
protected void onPreExecute() {
   super.onPreExecute();
   NotificationHandler.make(R.string.folder, R.string.zip_fol, R.drawable.ic_archive_black_24dp );
}

Step 3

On the doInBackground method of the AsyncTask, we run the process to compress the files one by one. For this we will make use of the ZipEntry class which is used to represent a zip file entry in Android/Java. First we will create a File with the .zip extension.  After this, we will make use of an object of the class ZipOutputStream as depicted in the code snippet provided below.

BufferedInputStream origin = null; 
FileOutputStream dest = new FileOutputStream(_zipFile); 
ZipOutputStream out = new ZipOutputStream(new BufferedOutputStream(dest)); 
byte data[] = new byte[BUFFER];

After initializing the ZipOutPutStream object, we will put the zip entries in it by using the putNextEntry function of the class. To create a Zip entry of a file, we need to make use of for loop to generate the object of type ZipEntry and after that by using the putNextEntry function of the class, we will put the entries one by one as depicted in the code snippet given below.

for (int i = 0; i < path.size(); i++) {
FileInputStream fi = new FileInputStream(path.get(i));
origin = new BufferedInputStream(fi, BUFFER);
ZipEntry entry = new ZipEntry(path.get(i).substring(path.get(i).lastIndexOf("/") + 1));
out.putNextEntry(entry);

While preparing the Zip file, we will update the progress of the compression operation by making use of the Notification handler class.

This is how we have implemented the feature to compress the Albums in the Phimpme Android Application. To get the full source code for the same, please check the Phimpme Android GitHub repository listed on the resources below.

Resources

  1. StackOverflow – Compressing Files in Android – https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25562262/how-to-compress-files-into-zip-folder-in-android
  2. Blog – Compressing Files in Android programmatically – http://stacktips.com/tutorials/android/how-to-programmatically-zip-and-unzip-file-in-android
  3. GitHub – Phimpme Android Repository – https://github.com/fossasia/phimpme-android/
Continue ReadingCompressing Albums in the Phimpme Android Application

Shortcuts in the Phimpme Android Application

The Phimpme Android application comes with a great functionality of capturing moments, editing them, and sharing it with the world using various social media or cloud platforms integrated into the application. Sometimes, the user may want to directly go to a particular section of the application without having to go to the home activity all the time. We have solved this issue using the App shortcuts option which is provided on Android versions greater than 7.0 Nougat. When the user long clicks on the icon of the application, it provides us with multiple options to choose which activity or section we would like to go to as depicted in the screenshot below.

In this post, I will be explaining how we have achieved this functionality in the Phimpme Android application.

Step 1

In the Phimpme app, we have three main sections named Camera, Gallery and Accounts and we have added these three options in the app shortcut menu. To do this, first of all, we need to add a meta data to the main activity in the AndroidManifest.xml file. To do this, search for the activity which contains “android.intent.action.MAIN” and add the following line of code in the activity tag.

<meta-data android:name="android.app.shortcuts"
  android:resource="@xml/shortcuts" />

Step 2

Now after we have configured the manifest file, we need to create shortcuts.xml file in the resources folder which will contain the information about our app shortcuts along with the intent action to go to a particular activity.

After creating the xml file, add the following line of code.

<shortcuts xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

Now after this we have to create a shortcut tag and define the id of our shortcut and should add the icon to it which will be displayed to the user along with the shortcut text as depicted in the screenshot above. This can be done using the following line of code.

android:shortcutId="camera"
android:enabled="true"
android:icon="@drawable/ic_camera_alt_black_24dp"
android:shortcutShortLabel="@string/camera_short"
android:shortcutLongLabel="@string/camera_long"
android:shortcutDisabledMessage="@string/camera_short"

Now after this, we have to define the action which we want to perform when the user clicks on a particular app shortcut. To do this, create an intent tag and add the following lines of code in it.

<intent
  android:action="android.media.action.IMAGE_CAPTURE_SECURE"
  android:targetPackage="org.fossasia.phimpme"
  android:targetClass="org.fossasia.phimpme.opencamera.Camera.CameraActivity" />
<categories android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />

The above code sets the action type as Image capture and defines the package name of the application. The above code is used to open the Camera activity of the Phimpme Application from the shortcut menu. In the similar fashion as described above, we have implemented the option to open up the Gallery and Accounts section of our application by just modifying the action name of the shortcut.

This is how we have implemented the App shortcut functionality in the Phimpme app. To get the full source code of the Shortcuts.xml file, please refer to the Phimpme Android repository.

Resources

  1. Android Developer’s Guide – App shortcuts – https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/shortcuts.html
  2. GitHub – Google Sample Project to depict the usage of app shortcuts – https://github.com/googlesamples/android-AppShortcuts
  3. Blog – Using app shortcuts in Android 7.0 – http://www.brevitysoftware.com/blog/how-to-use-app-shortcuts-in-android-7-1-nougat/
  4. GitHub – Phimpme Android repository – https://github.com/fossasia/phimpme-android/
Continue ReadingShortcuts in the Phimpme Android Application

Using RecyclerView Instead Of ViewPager For Gallery

Phimpme is an Image app that provide camera, editing ,sharing options and a gallery section. The Gallery section allows us to view large number of images that are locally available in the users device. Generally developers used viewpager to swipe the horizontal images although we are also using viewPager but the problem is it is taking more time to load large size images and that disturb the user smooth experience. After so much research I came to new solution. So in this post, I will be explaining how to use recyclerview to view gallery images instead of viewPager.

Let’s get started

Make sure you have Recyclerview support in your dependencies in build.gradle. As recyclerView required an adapter and viewHolder to set data in recyclerView. So I will be explaining about adapter.

ViewHolder for RecyclerView

public static class ViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder {
  ImageView imageView;
  LinearLayout linearLayout;

  public ViewHolder(View itemView) {
      super(itemView);
      imageView = new ImageView(context);
      linearLayout = (LinearLayout) itemView.findViewById(R.id.layout);
      WindowManager wm = (WindowManager) getContext().getSystemService(Context.WINDOW_SERVICE);
      Display display = wm.getDefaultDisplay();
      Point size = new Point();
      display.getSize(size);
      int width = size.x;
      int height = size.y;
      LinearLayout.LayoutParams params = new LinearLayout.LayoutParams(
              width, height);
      imageView.setLayoutParams(params);
      imageView.setScaleType(ImageView.ScaleType.FIT_CENTER);
      linearLayout.addView(imageView);
  }
}

Right now the imageView is adjusting according to device screen size so that it will be compatible with all devices.

I am passing the width and height in LayoutParams to parent of imageview i.e in our case linearlayout is parentView.

Adapter for RecyclerView

public ImageAdapter(ArrayList<Media> media) {
  this.media = media;
}

@Override
public ImageAdapter.ViewHolder onCreateViewHolder(ViewGroup parent, int viewType) {
  View view = LayoutInflater.from(parent.getContext()).inflate(R.layout.unit_image_pager, null, false);

  return new ViewHolder(view);
}

@Override
public void onBindViewHolder(ViewHolder holder, int position) {
  Glide.with(getContext())
          .load(media.get(position).getUri())
          .diskCacheStrategy(DiskCacheStrategy.SOURCE)
          .thumbnail(0.5f)
          .into(holder.imageView);
  holder.imageView.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
      @Override
      public void onClick(View v) {
          basicCallBack.callBack(0,null);
      }
  });
}

MediaList is an arrray of media that contains the list of images with URI that will help to load images. I am using Glide to load images you can use any library to load images. Adapter helps to load data in recyclerView.

Now set viewPager where you require to scroll images horizontally

@Nullable @BindView(R.id.photos_pager)
RecyclerView mRecylerPager;
mRecylerPager.setLayoutManager(linearLayoutManager);
mRecylerPager.setHasFixedSize(true);
mRecylerPager.setLongClickable(true);

Our recycler view is ready now the most important part is to set things onPageChangeListner. For example : In Phimpme we are getting path of current position image to show in image description so to update the value we are writing that codde in onPageChangeListner and to update the toolbar.

mViewPager.setOnPageChangeListener(new PagerRecyclerView.OnPageChangeListener() {
  @Override
  public void onPageChanged(int oldPosition, int position) {
      getAlbum().setCurrentPhotoIndex(position);
      toolbar.setTitle((position + 1) + " " + getString(R.string.of) + " " + size_all);
      invalidateOptionsMenu();
      pathForDescription = getAlbum().getMedia().get(position).getPath();
  }
});

To scroll to the given position we require to set the position to recyclerView and it can be done by the following code

mViewPager.scrollToPosition(getCurrentPsotion());

This is how I implemented the recyclerView instead of ViewPager to load gallery images faster as compare to ViewPager.

RecyclerView in Phimpme to load gallery Images

Resources:     

 

Continue ReadingUsing RecyclerView Instead Of ViewPager For Gallery

Real Time Upload Progress in Phimpme Android

The Phimpme Android application along with a wonderful gallery, edit image and camera section comes in with an option to share the images to different connected accounts. For sharing the images to different accounts, we have made use of different SDK’s provided to help users to share the images to multiple accounts at once without having to install other applications on their devices. When the user connects the account and shares the image to any account, we display a snackbar at the bottom that the upload has started and then we display the progress of the uploads in the notification panel as depicted in the screenshot below.

In this tutorial, I will be explaining how we achieved this feature of displaying the upload progress in the Phimpme Android application using a Notification handler class.

Step 1

The first thing we need to do is to create an AsyncTask that will be handling the upload progress and the notification handling in the background without affecting the main UI of the application. This can be done using the upload progress class which is a subclass of the AsyncTask class as depicted below.

private class UploadProgress extends AsyncTask<Void, Integer, Void> {
}

The AsyncTask overrides three methods which are onPreExecute, doInBackground and onPostExecute methods. In the onPreExecute method we will make the uploading notification visible to the user via the Notification handler class.

Step 2

After this, we need to create a notification handler class which will be handling the uploads progress. We will be needing four methods inside of the Notification handler class to :

  1. Make the app notification in the notification panel.
  2. To update the progress of the upload.
  3. To display the upload failed progress.
  4. To display the upload passed progress.

The notification display can be made using the following lines of code below:

mNotifyManager = (NotificationManager) ActivitySwitchHelper.getContext().getSystemService(Context.NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);
mBuilder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(ActivitySwitchHelper.getContext());
mBuilder.setContentTitle(ActivitySwitchHelper.getContext().getString(R.string.upload_progress))
      .setContentText(ActivitySwitchHelper.getContext().getString(R.string.progress))
      .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_cloud_upload_black_24dp)
      .setOngoing(true);
mBuilder.setProgress(0, 0, true);
// Issues the notification
mNotifyManager.notify(id, mBuilder.build());

The above code makes use of the Android’s NotificationManager class to get the notification service and sets the title and the upload image which is to be displayed to the user at the time of image uploads.

Now we need to update the notification after every each second to display the real time upload progress to the user. This can be done by using the upload progress method which takes in total file size and the amount of data uploaded as a parameter.

public static void updateProgress(int uploaded, int total, int percent){
  mBuilder.setProgress(total, uploaded, false);
  mBuilder.setContentTitle(ActivitySwitchHelper.getContext().getString(R.string.upload_progress)+" ("+Integer.toString(percent)+"%)");
  // Issues the notification
  mNotifyManager.notify(id, mBuilder.build());

The above updating process can be done in the doInBackground task of the AsyncTask described in step 1.

Step 3

After the upload has completed, the onPostExecute method will be executed and in that we need to make display the status whether the upload passed or failed and we need to set the onProgress value of the notification to be false so that user can remove the notification. This can be done using the following line of code below:

mBuilder.setContentText(ActivitySwitchHelper.getContext().getString(R.string.upload_done))
      // Removes the progress bar
      .setProgress(0,0,false)
      .setContentTitle(ActivitySwitchHelper.getContext().getString(R.string.upload_complete))
      .setOngoing(false);
mNotifyManager.notify(0, mBuilder.build());
mNotifyManager.cancel(id);

This is how we have created and made use of the Notification handler class in the Phimpme Application to display the upload progress in the application. To get the full source code for implementing the uploads to multiple accounts and to display the notification, please refer to the Phimpme Android GitHub repository.

Resources

  1. Google Developer’s Guide – Notification Handling – https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/notifiers/notifications.html
  2. Google Developer’s Guide – AsyncTask in Android – https://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/AsyncTask.html
  3. StackOverflow – Notification Handling – https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31063920/how-to-program-android-notification
  4. GitHub – Phimpme Android Repository – https://github.com/fossasia/phimpme-android/
Continue ReadingReal Time Upload Progress in Phimpme Android

Handle Large Size Images in Phimpme

Phimpme is an image app which provides custom camera, sharing features along with a well-featured gallery section. In gallery, it allows users to view local images. Right now we are using Glide to load images in the gallery, it is working fine for small size images it lags a bit when it comes to handling the high quality large images in the app. So in this post, I will explaining how to handle large size  images without lagging or without taking much time. To solve this problem I am using android universal image loader library which is very light when compared to glide.

Step – 1

First step is to include the dependency in the phimpme project and it can be done by the following way

dependencies {
compile 'com.nostra13.universalimageloader:universal-image-loader:1.9.4'
}

Step-2

After this create an Android universal image loader instance. We can create imageloader instance in our application class if we want to use the image loader globally.

ImageLoaderConfiguration config = new ImageLoaderConfiguration.Builder(
       this).memoryCacheExtraOptions(480, 800).defaultDisplayImageOptions(defaultOptions)
       .diskCacheExtraOptions(480, 800, null).threadPoolSize(3)
       .threadPriority(Thread.NORM_PRIORITY - 2)
       .tasksProcessingOrder(QueueProcessingType.FIFO)
       .denyCacheImageMultipleSizesInMemory()
       .memoryCache(new LruMemoryCache(MAXMEMONRY / 5))
       .diskCache(new UnlimitedDiskCache(cacheDir))
       .diskCacheFileNameGenerator(new HashCodeFileNameGenerator()) // default
       .imageDownloader(new BaseImageDownloader(this)) // default
       .imageDecoder(new BaseImageDecoder(false)) // default
       .defaultDisplayImageOptions(DisplayImageOptions.createSimple()).build();
 
 this.imageLoader = ImageLoader.getInstance();
 imageLoader.init(config);

Add the above code in the application class.


Step-3

Now our image loader instance is created now we can load an image easily. But to avoid the out of memory error and large image size error we can set many options to an image loader. In options we can set maximum memory allowed to image loader, maximum resolution and set particular architecture, it can be done in following ways.


Step-4

File cacheDir = com.nostra13.universalimageloader.utils.StorageUtils.getCacheDirectory(this);
 int MAXMEMONRY = (int) (Runtime.getRuntime().maxMemory());

To load an image using universal image loader just pass the URI of an image and to load write the below code.
Now the time is to load an image from local storage. We can load images from local storage, drawable, assets easily.

ImageLoader imageLoader = ((MyApplication)getApplicationContext()).getImageLoader();
 imageLoader.displayImage(imageUri, imageView);

This is how I handled large size image in Phimpme.

Large Image in Phimpme


References :

Continue ReadingHandle Large Size Images in Phimpme