Easiest way to implement visual-feedback/busy-indicator in android

Question

I am creating an app MainActivity that can calculate a report from its database to be shown in ReportActivity. All report calculation is done in ReportActivity.onCreate().

When the user click on MainActivity-s menu "generate report" the menü remains open for 2 secs until ReportActivity.onCreate() has finished and the report becomes visible.

What is the easiest way to give the user some visual feedback?

I already found ProgressDialog onCreate that shows a progressdialog while doing all calculation in an AsyncTask.

I wonder if there is some easier way to give the user some visual feedbak that the menue was successfully clicked and that the device has not crashed.

in ms windows i would use a waitcursor (hour-glass)

I already tried to open a ProgressDialog() in oncreate of the ReportActivity

    final ProgressDialog progressDialog = ProgressDialog.show(this, "MY Dialog", "Please wait...");

but it is not shown at all.

Update final solution:

As the answerss suggested I implemented an AsyncTask for the processing following this tutorial based on this codesample

ANR timelimit is 5 sec, how your application take 10 sec for generating report without an ANR. — Gaurav Agarwal, Apr 20 '12 at 21:59
you are right it felt like 10 secs- actually it was only 1-2 secs. I corrected it — k3b, Apr 20 '12 at 22:02

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 20 '12 at 22:04

You need to move your long-running code into a background thread. Long-running code on the UI thread will lock up the UI, which causes the user to think the app is frozen/crashing. Look into using AsyncTask. This allows you to run a process on a background thread and also give visual feedback to let the user know that your app is working.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 20 '12 at 22:05

1

Design a layout with ProgressDialog. Use setContentView(Progressdialog). Count time for 2-4 seconds (you choice) again set your older layout in setContentView. Why don't you use AsyncTask?

answered Apr 20 '12 at 22:05

Gaurav Agarwal

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 02 '13 at 13:42

Use a bar or circle activity indicator. From the official design guide:

Activity indicators are for operations of an indeterminate length. They ask users to wait a moment while something finishes up, without getting into specifics about what's happening behind the scenes.

Easiest way to implement visual-feedback/busy-indicator in android

3 Answers3