Implementation
Memory Efficiency,User Conformity,User Experience
It is considered a smell to set the attribute android:configChanges in the Android manifest. This attribute defines what configuration changes the app has to handle manually (else the system will take care of persisting input data between config changes in the activities ui elements). Handling them manually can cause memory bugs (leaving resources in memory).
Memory Efficiency
If there is a need to persist data across configuaration changes (due to orientation change, font size change) it is better to use a retained fragment.
This example is taken from the samples demo:
/**
* This example shows how you can use a Fragment to easily propagate state
* (such as threads) across activity instances when an activity needs to be
* restarted due to, for example, a configuration change. This is a lot
* easier than using the raw Activity.onRetainNonConfiguratinInstance() API.
*/
public class FragmentRetainInstance extends Activity {
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
// First time init, create the UI.
if (savedInstanceState == null) {
getFragmentManager().beginTransaction().add(android.R.id.content,
new UiFragment()).commit();
}
}
/**
* This is a fragment showing UI that will be updated from work done
* in the retained fragment.
*/
public static class UiFragment extends Fragment {
RetainedFragment mWorkFragment;
@Override
public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
Bundle savedInstanceState) {
View v = inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_retain_instance, container, false);
// Watch for button clicks.
Button button = (Button)v.findViewById(R.id.restart);
button.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View v) {
mWorkFragment.restart();
}
});
return v;
}
@Override
public void onActivityCreated(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onActivityCreated(savedInstanceState);
FragmentManager fm = getFragmentManager();
// Check to see if we have retained the worker fragment.
mWorkFragment = (RetainedFragment)fm.findFragmentByTag("work");
// If not retained (or first time running), we need to create it.
if (mWorkFragment == null) {
mWorkFragment = new RetainedFragment();
// Tell it who it is working with.
mWorkFragment.setTargetFragment(this, 0);
fm.beginTransaction().add(mWorkFragment, "work").commit();
}
}
}
/**
* This is the Fragment implementation that will be retained across
* activity instances. It represents some ongoing work, here a thread
* we have that sits around incrementing a progress indicator.
*/
public static class RetainedFragment extends Fragment {
ProgressBar mProgressBar;
int mPosition;
boolean mReady = false;
boolean mQuiting = false;
/**
* This is the thread that will do our work. It sits in a loop running
* the progress up until it has reached the top, then stops and waits.
*/
final Thread mThread = new Thread() {
@Override
public void run() {
// We'll figure the real value out later.
int max = 10000;
// This thread runs almost forever.
while (true) {
// Update our shared state with the UI.
synchronized (this) {
// Our thread is stopped if the UI is not ready
// or it has completed its work.
while (!mReady || mPosition >= max) {
if (mQuiting) {
return;
}
try {
wait();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
}
// Now update the progress. Note it is important that
// we touch the progress bar with the lock held, so it
// doesn't disappear on us.
mPosition++;
max = mProgressBar.getMax();
mProgressBar.setProgress(mPosition);
}
// Normally we would be doing some work, but put a kludge
// here to pretend like we are.
synchronized (this) {
try {
wait(50);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
}
}
}
};
/**
* Fragment initialization. We way we want to be retained and
* start our thread.
*/
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
// Tell the framework to try to keep this fragment around
// during a configuration change.
setRetainInstance(true);
// Start up the worker thread.
mThread.start();
}
/**
* This is called when the Fragment's Activity is ready to go, after
* its content view has been installed; it is called both after
* the initial fragment creation and after the fragment is re-attached
* to a new activity.
*/
@Override
public void onActivityCreated(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onActivityCreated(savedInstanceState);
// Retrieve the progress bar from the target's view hierarchy.
mProgressBar = (ProgressBar)getTargetFragment().getView().findViewById(
R.id.progress_horizontal);
// We are ready for our thread to go.
synchronized (mThread) {
mReady = true;
mThread.notify();
}
}
/**
* This is called when the fragment is going away. It is NOT called
* when the fragment is being propagated between activity instances.
*/
@Override
public void onDestroy() {
// Make the thread go away.
synchronized (mThread) {
mReady = false;
mQuiting = true;
mThread.notify();
}
super.onDestroy();
}
/**
* This is called right before the fragment is detached from its
* current activity instance.
*/
@Override
public void onDetach() {
// This fragment is being detached from its activity. We need
// to make sure its thread is not going to touch any activity
// state after returning from this function.
synchronized (mThread) {
mProgressBar = null;
mReady = false;
mThread.notify();
}
super.onDetach();
}
/**
* API for our UI to restart the progress thread.
*/
public void restart() {
synchronized (mThread) {
mPosition = 0;
mThread.notify();
}
}
}
}