Question

Is there a way to embed the progress bar in the UI with out an dialog.
And not programmatically but with layout xml files.
I am guessing it has to be some sort of animation or a “drawable”

Answer 1

You can use the ProgressBar widget:

<ProgressBar
    android:id="@+id/a_progressbar"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>

You can customize it with your own image if you want. You just have to create a styles file (res/styles.xml) like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <style name="AProgressBar">
        <item name="android:indeterminateDrawable">@drawable/progress_small</item>
        <item name="android:minWidth">20dip</item>
        <item name="android:maxWidth">20dip</item>
        <item name="android:minHeight">20dip</item>
        <item name="android:maxHeight">20dip</item>
    </style>
</resources>

@drawable/progress_small makes reference to an image file called progress_small.png. Then, just modify your progress bar this way:

<ProgressBar
    android:id="@+id/a_progressbar"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    style="@style/AProgressBar"/>