How to update UI in a BroadcastReceiver

Question

I created an application in which I registered a broadcast receiver within my main class(Main Activity) and whenever I receive something in my BroadcastReceiver I want to update UI for e.g. I want to show an alert box or set some text view of my MainActivity. I receive all the values in my receiver but unable to set them, can somebody help me so that I can update my UI in the BroadcastReceiver.

My BroadcastReceiver class is inner class of MainActivity like this :-

public class MainActivity extends Activity {     ..........  public static class NissanTabBroadcast extends BroadcastReceiver {         @Override         public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {             SharedPreferences shrd = context.getSharedPreferences("NissanGallery", context.MODE_WORLD_READABLE);             type = shrd.getString("type", "null");             badges = shrd.getString("badge_count", "null");              //badge_tips_text.setText(badges);             /*Editor edit =  shrd.edit();             edit.remove("type");*/              Toast.makeText(context, "" + type + "\n" + badge_tips_text.getText().toString(), Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();         }     } } 

Any help will be appreciable

Thanks

Answer 1

I suggest you use a Handler.

1. Initialize a Handler in the Activity, example: handler = new Handler()
2. Provide the handler to the BroadcastReceiver in the constructor, in the same way as I did for NissanTabBroadcast above
3. Use post() method of your Handler instance in the onReceive() method to submit the Runnable that updates the UI

This is the cleanest solution I can imagine.

public class MainActivity extends Activity {      private MyReceiver receiver;      @Override     public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {         super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);         setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);          receiver = new MyReceiver(new Handler()); // Create the receiver         registerReceiver(receiver, new IntentFilter("some.action")); // Register receiver          sendBroadcast(new Intent("some.action")); // Send an example Intent     }      public static class MyReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {          private final Handler handler; // Handler used to execute code on the UI thread          public MyReceiver(Handler handler) {             this.handler = handler;         }          @Override         public void onReceive(final Context context, Intent intent) {             // Post the UI updating code to our Handler             handler.post(new Runnable() {                 @Override                 public void run() {                     Toast.makeText(context, "Toast from broadcast receiver", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();                 }             });         }     } }