Question

I have this code to take screenshots of layouts in Android. It is not throwing any errors, however, the screenshot is not being taken either. Can someone please help me figure out what I am doing wrong here? I am new with Eclipse and I am having a hard time figuring things out. Also if there is any other way to take screenshots can you post it as an answer to this thread? Thanks for your time!

  private void getScreenshot()
                {
                    View content = findViewById(R.id.testView);
                    content.setDrawingCacheEnabled(true);

                    content.buildDrawingCache(true);

                    Bitmap bitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(content.getDrawingCache());
                    content.setDrawingCacheEnabled(false);

                    File file = new File( Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() + "image.png");

                    try 
                    {
                        file.createNewFile();
                        FileOutputStream ostream = new FileOutputStream(file);
                        bitmap.compress(CompressFormat.PNG, 100, ostream);
                        ostream.close();

                    } 
                    catch (Exception e) 
                    {
                        e.printStackTrace();
                    }

                    }

Answer 1

Do you need to add path separator into your File? i.e.

File file = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() + 
                     File.separator + "image.png");

You should add a lot more logs and tests in your code to check whether it is behaving as you would expect, e.g.

• Log the details of the file you are trying to create to be sure it is correct.

• Once you’ve created the file, test that it exists, e.g. if (!file.exists())

• The Bitmap.compress function returns a boolean, so you should check the return value and log it to see if it succeeded.

One other thought: maybe you need to call ostream.flush() (API docs here) to ensure the buffered data is written to the file?

I’m assuming you’re writing this code for use within your app. You probably already know this, but DDMS provides a way to take screenshots in case you just want to take some yourself. Just make sure to select the device to enable the Screenshot menu option.