Android MVC

Discipline of IT
James Cook University

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This presentation focuses on…

1. Android Threads
2. MVC in Android
3. Graphics in Android

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Handling background tasks

• Mobile Apps are typically multi-threaded

• The main thread is the GUI thread
• Then additional threads are used for handling
long-running background tasks

• Common issues:
• Updating a GUI object from a background
task will crash the App!
• Running task that take a long time on the
GUI thread slows the program down
Using Threads directly

• Use the Runnable interface, or subtype Thread

• Then, to force a GUI update to be handled by the

GUI thread use:
• Activity.runOnUiThread(Runnable)
• View.post(Runnable)
• View.postDelayed(Runnable, long)

• View.postInvalidate()
Why use MVC?

• In a mid-sized app, just putting all of your

code in the Activity class is bad design
– Becomes hard to understand and work on the
code
– Mistakes become more likely
– Harder to test individual parts of the app
– Harder to reuse parts of the app
Model

• You make an app to solve a problem

– E.g. sketch pad, calculator, …
• The “problem-domain” of the app is
represented by the model

• E.g. A game has:

– Players, Pieces, the game Board, …
View

• How the Model is presented to the user

– Visualising the model
– Generating touch events, click events

• Note: each view object (button, relative

layout, custom view) generates its own
events
– If a sub-view does not handle an event, then
the event “bubbles” up to the parent view
Controller

• Typically, each Activity is a Controller for its

associated view and model

• Controller can be used to create the model

and associate it with the view

• The events generated by a view are typically routed

into the Controller
– That’s because the controller knows about the
View and the Model and can send messages (e.g.
update requests) to both of them
“Wiring up”

• To allow the Controller to handle events from the

View, you assign event handlers
– Each View event (click, touch, key) has an
associated “listener” interfaces
– Implementing these listeners is then handled by
a Controller method
Things to note…
• A “good” MVC design has these characteristics:
– The model should not have direct links to the View
or Controller
– The View can have a direct link to the model
– The controller has direct links to the model and view

• The model can then be re-used in our apps

• E.g. you could place the model in a Service
component…
It’s a bad idea for the model to have direct knowledge
of the View

• There are a few solutions:

– Polling: the Controller regularly checks the model
to see if there are changes and tells the View

– Notification: The model has its own “listener”

interface
» The View or Controller can implement the
listener
Example: MyTouchDemo

• Pacman is the “model” - supports a listener interface

• MyView is the “view” (a custom View subtype)

• MainActivity is the “controller”

• Handles Pacman creation
• Handles touch events
Things to note…

• Activities can actually be coded so that they are a

combination of Controller and View logic

• E.g. activity handles View updates directly…

• This would of course not be traditional MVC…
View Layout

• Just before a view is displayed, it has time to

figure out how much screen space it needs

• This is why the constructor is needed in a

custom view subtype
View measurement

• A view figures out its space based on the

onMeasure() method
– Each view/sub-view implements this method
– The outer-most view asks its child views for their
sizes, so it can figure out its size
Canvas drawing

• Every view has an onDraw() method

• When invalidate() is called, this force the view

to run the code in its onDraw() method

• Android uses the “painter’s algorithm”

– Parent drawn first, then child on top (drawing
over the parent)
Canvas drawing

• The onDraw() method needs to be treated carefully

– The code needs to run fast
– Avoid creating objects inside onDraw()

• Useful classes
– Canvas (support draw and transformations)
– Paint
– Bitmap
– Drawable – you can setup drawable objects (i.e.
shapes)
Bling

• The Paint class has a number of powerful features

– Shader – e.g. linear gradients
– ShadowLayer
– ColorFilter

• Animation
– You can implement “tweening”
» Provide start, end, and speed to change visual
attirubtes
• Size, position, scale, color…
MVC – This is the way to make an app in Android

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