Download queue in Android

Question

What's the best way to implement a download queue in Android?

I suspect there might be some platform classes that might do most of the work.

Answer 1

What's the best way to implement a download queue in Android?

Use an IntentService. It supplies the queue and the background thread for you, so all you have to do is put your download logic in onHandleIntent(). See here for a sample project demonstrating this.

Answer 2

I would suggest looking at the java.util.concurrent package and more specifically read up on Executors

You can create an ExecutorService which would only run 'n' number of Runnable objects at a time and would automatically queue up the rest of the tasks. Once one of the threads being executed finishes execution it picks up the next Runnable object in queue for execution.

Answer 3

Using an IntentService will make it quite difficult to support cancellation. It's just something you need to be aware of. If you can, it's API Level 9, you will be better of using http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/DownloadManager.html