Loading remote images

Question

In Android, what is the simplest approach to the following:

1. Load an image from a remote server.
2. Display it in an ImageView.

Answer 1

Here's a method that I actually used in an application and I know it works:

try {
    URL thumb_u = new URL("http://www.example.com/image.jpg");
    Drawable thumb_d = Drawable.createFromStream(thumb_u.openStream(), "src");
    myImageView.setImageDrawable(thumb_d);
}
catch (Exception e) {
    // handle it
}

I have no idea what the second parameter to Drawable.createFromStream is, but passing "src" seems to work. If anyone knows, please shed some light, as the docs don't really say anything about it.

Answer 2

The easiest way so far is build a simple image retriver:

public Bitmap getRemoteImage(final URL aURL) {
    try {
        final URLConnection conn = aURL.openConnection();
        conn.connect();
        final BufferedInputStream bis = new BufferedInputStream(conn.getInputStream());
        final Bitmap bm = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(bis);
        bis.close();
        return bm;
    } catch (IOException e) {}
    return null;
}

Then, you just have to supply a URL to the method and it will returns a Bitmap. Then, you will just have to use the setImageBitmap method from ImageView to show the image.