Question

I am trying to abstract out and create a Action Bar (for Android 2.2). Hence I am writing it out myself. For some reason I am not able to get the HomeScreen to update the actionbar. It may not be a handler issue, something more basic than that I guess.

My Class Diagram is like
IBar (interface) ->implementedby-> ActionBarActivity (abstract class) ->extendedby-> HomeScreen
Uses class God public static methods.

Only relevant pieces of code below

ActionBarActivity, used by all my Activity’s.

public abstract class ActionBarActivity extends Activity implements IBar {
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.actionbar);

    connectionStatus = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.connectStatus);
    connectionStatus.setOnClickListener(this);
    if (God.isConnectedToServer)
        connectionStatus.setImageDrawable(this.getResources().getDrawable(
                R.drawable.connect));
    else
        connectionStatus.setImageDrawable(this.getResources().getDrawable(
                R.drawable.disconnect));
    connectionStatus.setEnabled(true);

public void setConnectionStatus(boolean status) {
    Bundle bundle = new Bundle() ;
    bundle.putSerializable(God.BARVALUES, (IBar) this) ;
    Message message = updateBar.obtainMessage() ;
    message.setData(bundle);
    message.sendToTarget();
}
@Override
public boolean handleMessage(Message barData) {
    IBar barValues = (IBar) barData.getData()
            .getSerializable(God.BARVALUES);
--->>>if (barValues.getConnectionStatus())
        connectionStatus.setImageDrawable(this.getResources().getDrawable(
                R.drawable.connect));
    else if (!barValues.getConnectionStatus())
        connectionStatus.setImageDrawable(this.getResources().getDrawable(
                R.drawable.disconnect));
    return false;
}
public abstract boolean getConnectionStatus();

HomeScreen extends ActionBarActivity

public class HomeScreen extends ActionBarActivity {
@Override 
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.home);
    try {
        God.switchServer((ActionBarActivity)this, God.mCruiseOnServer);
    } catch (InvalidServerDNSorIPException e) {
        Toast.makeText(this, "Unable to connect to server", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
        return ;
    }

God Class, public static.

public class God {
public static boolean switchServer(ActionBarActivity activity, String newServer) {
    ...
    activity.setConnectionStatus(true) ;
    ....
}

The image button on action bar

<ImageView
    android:id="@+id/connectStatus"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_toRightOf="@id/refresh"
    android:contentDescription="@string/connectionStatus" />

Edit : I ran this under debugger, and I am execution has reached —>>> line. Which means my connection.setImageDrawable is called, but for some reason does not show up on my UI. I am missing something really basic here.

Answer 1

The root cause was that the base class had a R.layout.actionbar, which was a different instance than that of the R.id.actionbar instead of my homescreen.