How to change surfaceview's z-order runtime in android

Question

Recently I studied webrtc in android.

I wanna click SurfaceView A to make it fullscreen and another SurfaceView B becomes small, or maybe click B. But I found it is hard to change the z-order of two different surfaceviews in runtime.

Here is my layout

<FrameLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
app:layout_behavior="@string/appbar_scrolling_view_behavior"
tools:showIn="@layout/app_bar_main">

<org.webrtc.PercentFrameLayout
    android:id="@+id/remote_video_layout"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent">

    <org.webrtc.SurfaceViewRenderer
        android:id="@+id/remote_video_view"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

</org.webrtc.PercentFrameLayout>

<org.webrtc.PercentFrameLayout
    android:id="@+id/local_video_layout"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent">

    <org.webrtc.SurfaceViewRenderer
        android:id="@+id/local_video_view"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:keepScreenOn="true" />

</org.webrtc.PercentFrameLayout>

PercentFrameLayout is a ViewGroup subclass to measure the percent of screen.
I have tried to use setZOrderMediaOverlay in runtime but it failed. I found the SDK says

Note that this must be set before the surface view's containing window is attached to the window manager.

So is it means that i can't change SurfaceView z-order in runtime? Or is there any way to hack it?

Sorry for my bad English.

Edit 1
Both SurfaceViewRender and PercentFrameLayout are from the library, SurfaceViewRender is SurfaceView subclass.

Use `TextureView`s instead. They behave pretty much like regular `View`s. — Mike M., May 23 '16 at 08:10
@MikeM. SurfaceViewRender is SurfaceView subclass, it is in the library and I can't change it. — Tino, May 23 '16 at 08:33
Ah, I see. The way you were talking about that class, and `PercentFrameLayout`, I thought they were your own custom classes, and you just used a conflicting package name, for some reason. — Mike M., May 23 '16 at 08:42
@MikeM. Both 'SurfaceViewRender' and 'PercentFrameLayout' are from the library, 'SurfaceViewRender' is 'SurfaceView' subclass, I just want to change the z-order of 'SurfaceView' in runtime — Tino, May 23 '16 at 08:58

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered May 23 '16 at 14:41

Finally, I tried many times and solved it by myself.

First, I change SurfaceViewRender A and B to View.GONE, then remove A and B from parent layout, setZOrderMediaOverlay A false and B true or A true and B false. The left steps just reversed.

Just look like the below.

    mLocalRender.setVisibility(View.GONE);
    mRemoteRender.setVisibility(View.GONE);
    mLocalRenderLayout.removeView(mLocalRender);
    mRemoteRenderLayout.removeView(mRemoteRender);
    mLocalRender.setZOrderMediaOverlay(mLocalPreview);
    mRemoteRender.setZOrderMediaOverlay(!mLocalPreview);
    mLocalRenderLayout.addView(mLocalRender, new ViewGroup.LayoutParams(ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT));
    mRemoteRenderLayout.addView(mRemoteRender, new ViewGroup.LayoutParams(ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT));
    mLocalRender.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
    mRemoteRender.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);

thanks for your answer, i found there is a .setZOrderOnTop(true), which help to resolve my case. — Amos, Oct 04 '18 at 10:45

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 15 '22 at 00:16

I solved the same problem in a different way. My views were in CoordinatorLayout. Both were set to GONE in xml. Then from Fragment::onViewCreated

mRemoteVideoView.init(mRootEglBase.getEglBaseContext(), null);
mRemoteVideoView.setZOrderMediaOverlay(false);

mLocalVideoView.init(mRootEglBase.getEglBaseContext(), null);
mLocalVideoView.setZOrderMediaOverlay(true);
mLocalVideoView.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);

Note, that mRemoteVideoView is not made visible here. It's made visible by WebRTC framework when the remote stream arrives.

How to change surfaceview's z-order runtime in android

2 Answers2