Tutorial: adding a startup splash

Goal

Display a splash screen on startup.

Prerequisites

You should have completed the Setting Up a Ruboto Development Environment tutorial.

This tutorial has been tested with the following setups

Platform	JDK	Ruby	Ruboto	Ruboto Core	Device	API level	Tester
OS X 10.8.5	1.7.0_40	2.0.0	0.15.0	0.6.0	Emulator	10	donV
OS X 10.8.3	1.7.0_21	2.0.0	0.13.0	0.6.0	Emulator	10	donV
ArchLinux x86_64	openjdk 7.u13_2.3.7-2	1.9.3	0.10.1	0.5.2	Sony Xperia SL	16	Nyangawa

Create the app

ruboto gen app --package org.ruboto.example.splash
cd splash

Connect your device or start the emulator.

ruboto emulator

Install the app and start it

rake install start

You should see the standard "What hath Matz wrought?" screen.

Choose image

To display a splash screen, you will have to prepare a suitable image for it. Here I use Ruboto logo for example.

When you have got your favourite image. Place it in your project as res/drawable/logo.png.

Add a splash screen

Ruboto has a built in XML-based splash function. So you can directly use it by adding res/layout/splash.xml.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical"
    android:background="#30587c"
>
<!--Specify your splash image here-->
<ImageView
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:src="@drawable/logo"  
    android:scaleType="fitCenter"
    android:layout_weight="1"
/>
  <TextView android:id="@+id/text"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:text="Please wait..."
            android:color="#000000"
  />
</LinearLayout>

Try it!

Redeploy the application with new scripts

rake install start

You should now be able to meet a splash screen before you see our standard "What hath Matz wrought?" screen.

Enjoy!