Question

I have an Activity with 3 spinners. These spinners get their data from a web-service by a method that takes about 1 minute to be completed.

I want to load the Activity first and after it is made visible, call that web-service method and load data. I have tested the following codes separately but none of them solved my problem. In these samples application goes into a black screen and when the web-service operation completed, it is made visible.

@Override
protected void onCreate() {

    //.........    


    final Runnable r = new Runnable()
    {
        public void run()
        {
            loadMyData();
        }
    };
    Utilities.performOnBackgroundThread(r);    
}

---

@Override
protected void onResume() {

    new Thread() {
        @Override
        public void run() {
            loadMyData();
        }
    }.start();
    super.onResume();

}

---

@Override
protected void onStart() {
    if (comesFromOnCreateMethod)
    {
        final Runnable r = new Runnable()
        {
            public void run()
            {
                loadMyData();
            }
        };
        Utilities.performOnBackgroundThread(r);
    }
    comesFromOnCreateMethod = false;
    super.onStart();
}

---

@Override
protected void onResume() {

    if (comesFromOnCreateMethod)
    {
        final Runnable r = new Runnable()
        {
            public void run()
            {
                loadMyData();
            }
        };
        Utilities.performOnBackgroundThread(r);
    }
    comesFromOnCreateMethod = false;

}

Answer 1

If you are getting a black screen, then I would assume your code is being run on the UI thread and not on the background, causing the UI to hang until the work is completed.

One of the best solutions to doing background work is an AsyncTask. Using this, you can call it in your onCreate() method, and when its done, it will post a callback to the UI thread for you in which you can display you data.

If you want this method to run everytime this Activity displays, then call it in onResume(). Otherwise, call it in onCreate().