gluon android splash screen

Question

I had created small mobile apps using Gluon Mobile and now on beta testing trough Google Play. but I realized that start-time of my mobile apps on android device is quite slow (take around more than 10 seconds).

it would be great if I can add a SplashScreen before the apps is loaded so user will not waiting in total for 10 times, but they feel only half of it because they got response from apps while seeing the SplashScreen.

on native android development, we just build 2 activity (one for SplashScreen and one the main apps) like blow :

<activity
android:name=”.SplashScreen”>
<intent-filter>
<action android:name=”android.intent.action.MAIN” />
<category android:name=”android.intent.category.LAUNCHER” />
</intent-filter>
</activity>
<activity
android:name=”.MainActivity”
android:label=”@string/app_name”
>
<intent-filter>
<action android:name=”android.intent.action.MAIN” />
</intent-filter>
</activity>

my Question, is there any approach to show SplashScreen that build on JavaFX/GluOn that will be run both on andorid/ios rather than native. is there any disadvantages if we build on javaFX rather than this native approach.

since the the young age of gluon/javaFX on mobile, is not easy to get the best practice the ideal approach. please en-light me

rgrds

Answer 1

While a Splash screen could be a nice idea, actually the Gluon Mobile Multi-View projects created with the Gluon Plugin allow you creating a similar effect by using the Home View as a placeholder for an image or any other lightweight content you want to display, while having all the heavy stuff loaded in a secondary view.

By default, the Home View is the initial view that is loaded during the Application.start() method. The other views won't be loaded until the user switches to them.

With the following view, only when the user clicks on the floating action button, the actual load of the heavy stuff starts, but the splash view on the mobil device is displayed in no time:

public class SplashView extends View {

    public SplashView(String name) {
        super(name);

        setCenter(new ImageView(new Image(getClass().getResourceAsStream("splash.png"))));

        FloatingActionButton action = new FloatingActionButton(MaterialDesignIcon.ARROW_FORWARD.text, e -> 
                MobileApplication.getInstance().switchView(GluonSplash.SECONDARY_VIEW));
        getLayers().add(action);
    }

    @Override
    protected void updateAppBar(AppBar appBar) {
        appBar.setVisible(false);
    }

}

To avoid the need of user intervention, you can get rid of the action button and start loading the second view, after a certain time of displaying the splash.

In this other sample, after the splash view has been shown, a pause transition starts. After one second, it displays the label to indicate the new view will be loaded. At the same time, a task to load that view is started. When all the heavyweight view is loaded, it will be shown.

public class SplashView extends View {

    public SplashView(String name) {
        super(name);

        Label access = new Label("Accessing...");
        access.setTranslateY(200);
        access.setVisible(false);
        setCenter(new StackPane(new ImageView(new Image(getClass().getResourceAsStream("splash.png"))), 
                            access));

        Task<Void> task = new Task<Void>() {

            @Override
            protected Void call() throws Exception {
                Platform.runLater(() -> MobileApplication.getInstance().switchView(GluonSplash.SECONDARY_VIEW));
                return null;
            }
        };

        addEventHandler(LifecycleEvent.SHOWN, e -> {
            PauseTransition pause = new PauseTransition(Duration.seconds(1));
            pause.setOnFinished(f -> {
                access.setVisible(true);
                new Thread(task).start();
            });
            pause.play();
        });

    }

    @Override
    protected void updateAppBar(AppBar appBar) {
        appBar.setVisible(false);
    }

}

Answer 2

I'm a little late but for future Projects this might be useful:

There is a Project on Github that is extending the functionality of Gluon.
https://github.com/Ciruman/QuarkFX
It includes:

• Different approach to View handling wich lets you develop for different Device Sizes and Orientations
• There is also a Splash Screen included (It is not yet configurable but since it is open source you can quickly change it to your needs)
• for more features checkout its readme