Day 5: Improve Your Toast Message in Android App

Introduction

In my last article, we created a Toast Message that is quite basic. If you want to add an image in a Toast message then that is what we are going to do in this article, in other words customize a Toast Message.

The agenda we will follow is the same as we did in the previous article as in the following:

• First, add a button and TextView on the main_activity.xml
• Then, create a XML file for the toast. Because this time, we are inflating the XML file to toast notification.
• Last, we will call it from setOnClickListner().

The following is the procedure to follow.

Step 1 : First, add a button and textView to the main_activity.xml layout.



Step 2 : We will now add a XML file that acts as a toast popup when makeText() calls a toast instance.

Earlier, we had simplly es a simple string as a toast message, but this time we will inflate a XML file as the toast's content.

So, we will make an additional XML file named custom_toast.xml as in the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   android:layout_width="match_parent"
   android:layout_height="match_parent"
   android:orientation="horizontal"
   android:gravity="center" >

   <ImageView
      android:id="@+id/customImage"
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:contentDescription="@string/toastImage"
      android:src="@drawable/ic_launcher" />

   <TextView
      android:id="@+id/customText"
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:contentDescription="@string/toastImage"
      android:text="@string/toast_message" />
</LinearLayout>

And in string.xml file, we have declared some new:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
   <resources>
      <string name="app_name">Customized Toast</string>
      <string name="hello_world">Hello world!</string>
      <string name="action_settings">Settings</string>
      <string name="toastImage">My Toast</string>
      <string name="toast_message">This is my Custom Toast</string>
</resources>

Step 3

   // Button Instance
   Button myButton =(Button) findViewById(R.id.button1);

   myButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

   public void onClick(View arg0) {

      // Creating layout inflater instance
      LayoutInflater li= getLayoutInflater();

      // Adding the XML file to inflator
      View view =li.inflate(R.layout.custom_toast, (ViewGroup) findViewById(R.id.custom_toast_layout));

      // Creating Toast Object
      Toast myToast= new Toast(MainActivity.this);
      myToast.setDuration(myToast.LENGTH_LONG);
      myToast.setGravity(Gravity.CENTER, 0, 0);
      myToast.setView(view);
      myToast.show();
   }
});

Inside setOnClickListner(), we created an inflater and a view. Then, added a custom_toast.xml file to the infaltor. Now, we identify the entire XML file as a single view.

Finally, we target a Toast object and assign all the desired properties along with the setView() method where we our view (that we have inflated).

The final code will be like:

package com.greensyntax.customizedtoast;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;
import android.view.Gravity;
import android.view.LayoutInflater;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.View.OnClickListener;
import android.view.ViewGroup;
import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class MainActivity extends ActionBarActivity {

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

      // Button Instance
      Button myButton =(Button) findViewById(R.id.button1);

      myButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

      public void onClick(View arg0) {

         // Creating layout inflater instance
         LayoutInflater li= getLayoutInflater();

         // Adding the XML file to inflator
         View view =li.inflate(R.layout.custom_toast, (ViewGroup) findViewById(R.id.custom_toast_layout));

         // Creating Toast Object
         Toast myToast= new Toast(MainActivity.this);
         myToast.setDuration(myToast.LENGTH_LONG);
         myToast.setGravity(Gravity.CENTER, 0, 0);
         myToast.setView(view);
         myToast.show();
      }
   });

   }
}

And, it shows like:



Conclusion

If you experience any issue then go for the enclosed file.