An always open app showing the current date and time

Question

I am making an app which is going to be always open into my tablet. I am trying to show the current date and time in real time. For the time, I use below code

<DigitalClock
        android:id="@+id/digitalClock"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_marginTop="8dp"
        android:gravity="center"
        android:textColor="#FFFFFF"
        android:textSize="24sp"
        android:textStyle="bold"
        app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="@+id/date"
        tools:layout_editor_absoluteX="0dp" />

And it works perfectly. The app is always open and the time change in real-time (although I am searching now how to add the seconds).

For the date, I used that code

dateTimeDisplay = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.date);
calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("EEEE, dd MMMM, yyyy");
date = dateFormat.format(calendar.getInstance().getTime());
dateTimeDisplay.setText(date);

But it shows the current date, not in real-time. It changes only when I open the app.

I can tell because I put seconds in dateFormat to test it and it was static.

SimpleDateFormat dateFormat = new SimpleDateFormat("EEEE, dd MMMM, yyyy , ss");

Have anyone any idea?? Thank you!!

As an aside consider throwing away the long outmoded and notoriously troublesome `SimpleDateFormat` and friends, and adding [ThreeTenABP](https://github.com/JakeWharton/ThreeTenABP) to your Android project in order to use java.time, the modern Java date and time API. It is so much nicer to work with. — Ole V.V., Feb 27 '20 at 06:15
Please remember to accept the answer if it was helpful (and not to if it wasn’t). Thank you. — Ole V.V., Mar 03 '20 at 21:14

Pankaj Kumar · Answer 1 · 2020-03-04T02:46:54.853

1

DigitalClock has been deprecated, It is recommended you use TextClock instead.

TextClock will do your job by default. Check below example

<TextClock
        android:id="@+id/textClock1"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:format12Hour="hh:mm:ss a"
        android:textColor="#F1511B"
        android:textSize="45dp"
        android:textStyle="bold" />

and for 24-hour format use

android:format24Hour="hh:mm:ss a

Improvement note: Instead of using SimpleDateFormat and helper classes you should use ThreeTenABP as Ole V.V. is indicating in the comment. Here is How to use ThreeTenABP in Android Project

edited Mar 04 '20 at 02:46

answered Feb 26 '20 at 10:36

Pankaj Kumar

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Thank you, I will make the change.. Do you have maybe any idea for the date? – ni gi Feb 26 '20 at 11:50
I just made the change but it shows the same.. Only hour and minutes.. Not seconds.. But at least it is real time.. – ni gi Feb 26 '20 at 12:02
1

I changed it to android:format24Hour="hh:mm:ss a" and it works! Thank you again! – ni gi Feb 26 '20 at 12:17

An always open app showing the current date and time

1 Answers1