Splash Screen in Android using Fragment

Question

I am designing an android application where I need to add the splash screen of my application. Generally I used to use only Activity upto till now but for this project ADT is creating the Fragment also with Activity.

Now I have a confusion where I should write code of timerTask and Timer to schedule a task to perform either in onCreate of the Activity or onCreateView method or something else ?

Currently I have written like this but I am not sure it is right or wrong.

public class SplashActivity extends Activity {

    // using timer to do operation at certain 3 seconds after.
    private Timer mTimer;
    private TimerTask mTimerTask;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_splash);

        if (savedInstanceState == null) {
            getFragmentManager().beginTransaction()
                    .add(R.id.container, new PlaceholderFragment()).commit();

            // execute this after 3 seconds
            mTimerTask = new TimerTask() {

                @Override
                public void run() {
                    // start the activity (Login/Home) depends on the login
                    // status
                }
            };

            mTimer = new Timer();
            mTimer.schedule(mTimerTask, 3000);

        }
    }

    /**
     * A placeholder fragment containing a simple view.
     */
    public static class PlaceholderFragment extends Fragment {

        public PlaceholderFragment() {
        }

        @Override
        public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
                Bundle savedInstanceState) {
            View rootView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_splash,
                    container, false);
            return rootView;
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void onBackPressed() {
        super.onBackPressed();
        // cancel the timer if user has pressed the back button to abort it.
        if(mTimer !=null)
            mTimer.cancel();
    }

}

Answer 1

where I should write code of timerTask and Timer to schedule a task to perform either in onCreate of the Activity or onCreateView method or something else ?

Create another Activity and write your timer task code and then navigate to your home activity.Do something like below,

public class MySplash extends Activity {

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.splash);   

        new Handler().postDelayed(new Runnable() {
        @Override
        public void run() 
        {
        startActivity(new Intent(MySplash.this,SplashActivity.class));
        finish();
        }
    }, 3000);

        }
    }

then change you home screen code like below where you need to show your fragment class only.

public class SplashActivity extends Activity {           
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_splash);

        if (savedInstanceState == null) {
            getFragmentManager().beginTransaction()
                    .add(R.id.container, new PlaceholderFragment()).commit();        
        }
    }

Don't forget to add the MySplash in your manifest file and to make it a launcher Activity.

Note: As per the other answer, it's not recommendable to use Splash Screen unless until it is required so much.

Reference,

http://cyrilmottier.com/2012/05/03/splash-screens-are-evil-dont-use-them/

Answer 2

Don't include splash screens in Android. It's bad design. It ruins user experience.

Users don't like to wait. Instead, show them your normal activity and put a ProgressBar in the ActionBar or something.

If the only reason you want a splash screen is to show your logo and brand colors, you should do that in the ActionBar. Style your ActionBar to your brand colors and put the logo of your app at the left of the ActionBar.

http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/help.html#your-app