Android image fetching

Question

What is the simplest way to fetch an image from a url in an android program?

Answer 1

You do it many ways but the simplist way I can think of would be something like this:

Bitmap IMG;
Thread t = new Thread(){
    public void run(){
    try {
        /* Open a new URL and get the InputStream to load data from it. */ 
        URL aURL = new URL("YOUR URL"); 
    URLConnection conn = aURL.openConnection(); 
    conn.connect(); 
    InputStream is = conn.getInputStream(); 
    /* Buffered is always good for a performance plus. */ 
    BufferedInputStream bis = new BufferedInputStream(is); 
    /* Decode url-data to a bitmap. */ 
    IMG = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(bis);
    bis.close(); 
    is.close(); 

    // ...send message to handler to populate view.
    mHandler.sendEmptyMessage(0);

} catch (Exception e) {
    Log.e(DEB, "Remtoe Image Exception", e);

    mHandler.sendEmptyMessage(1);
} finally {
}
}
};

t.start();

And then add a handler to your code:

    private Handler mHandler = new Handler(){
    public void handleMessage(Message msg) {
        switch(msg.what){
        case 0:
            (YOUR IMAGE VIEW).setImageBitmap(IMG);
            break;
        case 1:
            onFail();
            break;
        }
    }
};

By starting a thread and adding a handler you are able to load the images without locking up the UI during download.