Android SplashScreen

The problem is most likely that you are running the splash screen (some sort of Dialog such as ProgressDialog I assume) in the same thread as all the work being done. This will keep the view of the splash screen from being updated, which can keep it from even getting displayed to the screen. You need to display the splash screen, kick off an instance of AsyncTask to go download all your data, then hide the splash screen once the task is complete.

So your Activity's onCreate() method would simply create a ProgressDialog and show it. Then create the AsyncTask and start it. I would make the AsyncTask an inner class of your main Activity, so it can store the data it has downloaded to some variable in your Activity and close the ProgressDialog in its onPostExecute() method.

Not sure how to elaborate anymore without just showing the code, so here it is:

public class MyActivity extends Activity {    private ProgressDialog pd = null;    private Object data = null;    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);        setContentView(R.layout.main);        // Show the ProgressDialog on this thread        this.pd = ProgressDialog.show(this, "Working..", "Downloading Data...", true, false);        // Start a new thread that will download all the data        new DownloadTask().execute("Any parameters my download task needs here");    }    private class DownloadTask extends AsyncTask<String, Void, Object> {         protected Object doInBackground(String... args) {             Log.i("MyApp", "Background thread starting");             // This is where you would do all the work of downloading your data             return "replace this with your data object";         }         protected void onPostExecute(Object result) {             // Pass the result data back to the main activity             MyActivity.this.data = result;             if (MyActivity.this.pd != null) {                 MyActivity.this.pd.dismiss();             }         }    }    }

Obviously there are some pieces you need to fill in there, but this code should run and give you a good starting point (forgive me if there is a code error, I don't have access to the Android SDK as I'm typing this currently).

Some more good reading on the subject of AsyncTasks in Android can be found here and here.

just for reference this is the best way I found to make a splash screen:http://android-developers.blogspot.de/2009/03/window-backgrounds-ui-speed.html

I was searching for this for quite a while, from androids docs.. if you want to avoid those black screens, you need to create a theme with windowBackground so:

<resources>    <style name="Theme.Shelves" parent="android:Theme">        <item name="android:windowBackground">@drawable/background_shelf</item>        <item name="android:windowNoTitle">true</item>    </style></resources>

And set this theme as the theme for your main activity... TADA, splashscreen from the first second.

If you want a complex background and not just an image that will be stretched to fill you can use Drawables, here is an example of a layer-list that will keep the logo centered with a black background:

<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >    <item android:drawable="@color/black">    </item>    <item>        <bitmap            android:gravity="center"            android:src="@drawable/logo"            android:tileMode="disabled" >        </bitmap>    </item></layer-list>

Splash screen example :

public class MainActivity extends Activity {    private ImageView splashImageView;    boolean splashloading = false;    @Override    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);        splashImageView = new ImageView(this);        splashImageView.setScaleType(ScaleType.FIT_XY);        splashImageView.setImageResource(R.drawable.ic_launcher);        setContentView(splashImageView);        splashloading = true;        Handler h = new Handler();        h.postDelayed(new Runnable() {            public void run() {                splashloading = false;                setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);            }        }, 3000);    }}