Android : Loading an image from the Web with Asynctask

Question

How do I replace the following lines of code with an Asynctask ? How do you "get back" the Bitmap from the Asynctask ? Thank you.

ImageView mChart = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.Chart);
String URL = "http://www...anything ...";

mChart.setImageBitmap(download_Image(URL));

public static Bitmap download_Image(String url) {

        //---------------------------------------------------
        Bitmap bm = null;
        try {
            URL aURL = new URL(url);
            URLConnection conn = aURL.openConnection();
            conn.connect();
            InputStream is = conn.getInputStream();
            BufferedInputStream bis = new BufferedInputStream(is);
            bm = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(bis);
            bis.close();
            is.close();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            Log.e("Hub","Error getting the image from server : " + e.getMessage().toString());
        } 
        return bm;
        //---------------------------------------------------

    }

I thought about something like this :

replace :

mChart.setImageBitmap(download_Image(graph_URL));

by something like :

mChart.setImageBitmap(new DownloadImagesTask().execute(graph_URL));

and

public class DownloadImagesTask extends AsyncTask<String, Void, Bitmap> {

@Override
protected Bitmap doInBackground(String... urls) {
    return download_Image(urls[0]);
}

@Override
protected void onPostExecute(Bitmap result) {
    mChart.setImageBitmap(result);              // how do I pass a reference to mChart here ?
}


private Bitmap download_Image(String url) {
    //---------------------------------------------------
    Bitmap bm = null;
    try {
        URL aURL = new URL(url);
        URLConnection conn = aURL.openConnection();
        conn.connect();
        InputStream is = conn.getInputStream();
        BufferedInputStream bis = new BufferedInputStream(is);
        bm = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(bis);
        bis.close();
        is.close();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        Log.e("Hub","Error getting the image from server : " + e.getMessage().toString());
    } 
    return bm;
    //---------------------------------------------------
}


}

but How do I pass a reference to mChart in onPostExecute(Bitmap result) ??? Do I need to pass it with the URL in some way ? I would like to replace all my lines of code :

mChart1.setImageBitmap(download_Image(URL_1));
mChart2.setImageBitmap(download_Image(URL_2));

with something similar ... but in Asynctask way !

mChart1.setImageBitmap(new DownloadImagesTask().execute(graph_URL_1));
mChart2.setImageBitmap(new DownloadImagesTask().execute(graph_URL_2));

Is there an easy solution for this ? Do I get something wrong here ?

Answer 1

If the image is not that big you can just use an anonymous class for the async task. This would like this:

ImageView mChart = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.imageview);
String URL = "http://www...anything ...";

mChart.setTag(URL);
new DownloadImageTask.execute(mChart);

The Task class:

public class DownloadImagesTask extends AsyncTask<ImageView, Void, Bitmap> {

ImageView imageView = null;

@Override
protected Bitmap doInBackground(ImageView... imageViews) {
    this.imageView = imageViews[0];
    return download_Image((String)imageView.getTag());
}

@Override
protected void onPostExecute(Bitmap result) {
    imageView.setImageBitmap(result);
}


private Bitmap download_Image(String url) {
   ...
}

Hiding the URL in the tag is a bit tricky but it looks nicer in the calling class if you have a lot of imageviews that you want to fill this way. It also helps if you are using the ImageView inside a ListView and you want to know if the ImageView was recycled during the download of the image.

I wrote if you Image is not that big because this will result in the task having a implicit pointer to the underlying activity causing the garbage collector to hold the whole activity in memory until the task is finished. If the user moves to another screen of your app while the bitmap is downloading the memory can't be freed and it may make your app and the whole system slower.

Answer 2

This will get you images of any size... if you dont want the progress dialog just comment the codes in onPreExecute();

for(int i = 0 ; i < no_of_files ; i++ ) new FetchFilesTask().execute(image_url[i]);

private class FetchFilesTask extends AsyncTask {

    private ProgressDialog dialog = new ProgressDialog(FileExplorer.this);
    Bitmap bitmap[];
    protected void onPreExecute(){
        dialog.setMessage("fetching image from the server");
        dialog.show();
    }

     protected Bitmap doInBackground(String... args) {

             bitmap = getBitmapImageFromServer();
         return bitmap;
     }

     protected void onPostExecute(Bitmap m_bitmap) {
         dialog.dismiss();
         if(m_bitmap != null)
             //store the images in an array or do something else with all the images.   
     }
 }

public Bitmap getBitmapImageFromServer(){

// fetch image form the url using the URL and URLConnection class }

Answer 3

you can create a class say..BkgProcess which contains an inner class that extends AsyncTask. while instantiating BkgProcess pass the context of your Activity class in BkgProcess constructor. for eg:

public class BkgProcess {

String path;
Context _context;

public Download(Downloader downloader, String path2){

 this.path = path2;
    _context = downloader;

}

public void callProgressDialog(){

new BkgProcess().execute((Void)null);
}
class Downloads extends AsyncTask<Void, Void, Boolean> {
    private ProgressDialog dialog = new ProgressDialog(_context);
    protected void onPreExecute(){
        dialog.setMessage("Downloading image..");
        dialog.show();
    }

    protected void onPostExecute(Boolean success) {
        dialog.dismiss();
        if(success)
            Toast.makeText(_context, "Download complete", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
    }

@Override
protected Boolean doInBackground(Void... params) {
    return(startDownload(path));

    }


public boolean startDownload(String img_url) {

// download img..

      return true;
}
}
}

from your activity class..

BkgProcess dwn = new BkgProcess (Your_Activity_class.this, img_path);

dwn.callProgressDialog();