Question

Say I want to draw a line, then wait five seconds, then draw another line. I have a method like this:

    public void onDraw(Canvas canvas) {
        int w = canvas.getWidth();
        int h = canvas.getHeight();
        canvas.drawLine(w/2, 0, w/2, h-1, paint);
        // PAUSE FIVE SECONDS
        canvas.drawLine(0, h/2, w-1, h/2, paint);
    }

How do I pause?

Answer 1

Don’t wait in onDraw method it’s called in the UI thread and you’ll block it. Use flags to handle which line will be drawn

boolean shouldDrawSecondLine = false;

public void setDrawSecondLine(boolean flag) {
    shouldDrawSecondLine = flag;
}

public void onDraw(Canvas canvas) {
    int w = canvas.getWidth();
    int h = canvas.getHeight();
    canvas.drawLine(w/2, 0, w/2, h-1, paint);
    if (shouldDrawSecondLine) {
        canvas.drawLine(0, h/2, w-1, h/2, paint);
    }
}

Than use it in your code like this

final View view;
// initialize the instance to your view
// when it's drawn the second line will not be drawn

// start async task to wait for 5 second that update the view
AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void> task = new AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void>() {
    @Override
    protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) {
        try {
            Thread.sleep(5000);
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        }
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPostExecute(Void result) {
        view.setDrawSecondLine(true);
        view.invalidate();
        // invalidate cause your view to be redrawn it should be called in the UI thread        
    }
};
task.execute((Void[])null);