Question

Is it possible to get device aspect ratio before launching any activity?

I am trying to setup the width based on whether my device is identified as ‘long’ or ‘not_long’. This should be available long before the activity is launched but I am not sure where I can get this variable. Activity is NOT available at the time this method is executed. Also in order to avoid memory leaks I do not want to pass activity into the class that contains the following method.

Here is the failing call method:

public int getDefaultWidth() { 
        Configuration myConfig = new Configuration();
        myConfig.setToDefaults();
        myConfig = getResources().getConfiguration();

        switch (myConfig.screenLayout & Configuration.SCREENLAYOUT_LONG_MASK) {

            case Configuration.SCREENLAYOUT_LONG_NO: {
                return this._defaultWidth;
            }
            case Configuration.SCREENLAYOUT_LONG_YES: {
                return this._defaultWidthLong;
            }
            case Configuration.SCREENLAYOUT_LONG_UNDEFINED: {
                return this._defaultWidth;
            }
        }
        return this._defaultWidth;
    }

Answer 1

Your app’s Application context is created before any activities. An Application has a valid context, so you could use that to fetch whatever you need, set a static or member variable, and then reference that in your first activity.

An Application context can be handled by adding a new class that extends Application and making a small change in AndroidManifest.xml

Manifest:

<application android:enabled="true"...
   android:name=".Foo">
...
</application>

Add the new class to your project that extends Application:

public class Foo extends Application {

private int mWidth;

@Override
public void onCreate() {
    super.onCreate();
    // do stuff to set mWidth using the Application context like:
    // mWidth = getResources().getConfiguration().blahblahblah
}   

public int getWidth() {
    return mWidth;
}

From your activity, simply do this to get width:

int width = ((Foo)getApplication()).getWidth();