Get/pick an image from Android's built-in Gall

Question

I am trying to open an image / picture in the Gallery built-in app from inside my application.

I have a URI of the picture (the picture is located on the SD card).

Do you have any suggestions?

Answer 1

Above Answers are correct. I faced an different issue where in HTC M8 my application crashes when selecting an image from gallery. I'm getting null value for image path. I fixed and optimized with the following solution. in onActivityResult method

protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
    super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);
    if ((requestCode == RESULT_LOAD_IMAGE) && (resultCode == RESULT_OK)) {
     if (data != null) {

            Uri selectedImageUri = null;
            selectedImageUri = data.getData();
            String[] filePathColumn = { MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA };

            Cursor imageCursor = mainActivity.getContentResolver().query(
                    selectedImageUri, filePathColumn, null, null, null);

            if (imageCursor == null) {
                return;
            }

            imageCursor.moveToFirst();
            int columnIndex = imageCursor.getColumnIndex(filePathColumn[0]);
            picturePath = imageCursor.getString(columnIndex);
            if (picturePath == null) {
                picturePath = selectedImageUri.getPath();
                String wholeID = DocumentsContract
                        .getDocumentId(selectedImage);

                // Split at colon, use second item in the array
                String id = wholeID.split(":")[1];

                String[] column = { MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA };

                // where id is equal to
                String sel = MediaStore.Images.Media._ID + "=?";

                Cursor cursor = mainActivity.getContentResolver().query(
                        MediaStore.Images.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI,
                        column, sel, new String[] { id }, null);

                columnIndex = cursor.getColumnIndex(column[0]);

                if (cursor.moveToFirst()) {
                    picturePath = cursor.getString(columnIndex);
                }

                cursor.close();
            }
            picturePathAbs = new File(picturePath).getAbsolutePath();
            imageCursor.close();
        }

}

Answer 2

I went through the solution from @hcpl & @mad. hcpl's solution supports well for local image in the gallery & mad provided a better solution on top of that - it helps to load OI/Astro/Dropbox image as well. But in my app, while working on picasa library that's now integrated in Android Gallery, both solution fail.

I searched & analyzed a bit & eventually have come with a better & elegant solution that overcomes this limitation. Thanks to Dimitar Darazhanski for his blog, that helped me in this case, I modified a bit to make it easier to understand. Here is my solution goes -

public class BrowsePicture extends Activity {

//YOU CAN EDIT THIS TO WHATEVER YOU WANT
private static final int SELECT_PICTURE = 1;

private String selectedImagePath;
//ADDED
private String filemanagerstring;

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.main);

    ((Button) findViewById(R.id.Button01))
    .setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

        public void onClick(View arg0) {

            // in onCreate or any event where your want the user to
            // select a file
            Intent intent = new Intent();
            intent.setType("image/*");
            intent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT);
            startActivityForResult(Intent.createChooser(intent,
                    "Select Picture"), SELECT_PICTURE);
        }
    });
}

public void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
    if (resultCode == RESULT_OK) {
        if (requestCode == SELECT_PICTURE) {
            Uri selectedImageUri = data.getData();
            Log.d("URI VAL", "selectedImageUri = " + selectedImageUri.toString());
            selectedImagePath = getPath(selectedImageUri);

            if(selectedImagePath!=null){         
                // IF LOCAL IMAGE, NO MATTER IF ITS DIRECTLY FROM GALLERY (EXCEPT PICASSA ALBUM),
                // OR OI/ASTRO FILE MANAGER. EVEN DROPBOX IS SUPPORTED BY THIS BECAUSE DROPBOX DOWNLOAD THE IMAGE 
                // IN THIS FORM - file:///storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.dropbox.android/...
                System.out.println("local image"); 
            }
            else{
                System.out.println("picasa image!");
                loadPicasaImageFromGallery(selectedImageUri);
            }
        }
    }
}


// NEW METHOD FOR PICASA IMAGE LOAD
private void loadPicasaImageFromGallery(final Uri uri) {
    String[] projection = {  MediaColumns.DATA, MediaColumns.DISPLAY_NAME };
    Cursor cursor = getContentResolver().query(uri, projection, null, null, null);
    if(cursor != null) {
        cursor.moveToFirst();

        int columnIndex = cursor.getColumnIndex(MediaColumns.DISPLAY_NAME);
        if (columnIndex != -1) {
            new Thread(new Runnable() {
                // NEW THREAD BECAUSE NETWORK REQUEST WILL BE MADE THAT WILL BE A LONG PROCESS & BLOCK UI
                // IF CALLED IN UI THREAD 
                public void run() {
                    try {
                        Bitmap bitmap = android.provider.MediaStore.Images.Media.getBitmap(getContentResolver(), uri);
                        // THIS IS THE BITMAP IMAGE WE ARE LOOKING FOR.
                    } catch (Exception ex) {
                        ex.printStackTrace();
                    }
                }
            }).start();
        }
    }
    cursor.close();
}


public String getPath(Uri uri) {
    String[] projection = {  MediaColumns.DATA};
    Cursor cursor = getContentResolver().query(uri, projection, null, null, null);
    if(cursor != null) {
        //HERE YOU WILL GET A NULLPOINTER IF CURSOR IS NULL
        //THIS CAN BE, IF YOU USED OI FILE MANAGER FOR PICKING THE MEDIA
        cursor.moveToFirst();
        int columnIndex = cursor.getColumnIndexOrThrow(MediaColumns.DATA);
        String filePath = cursor.getString(columnIndex);
        cursor.close();
        return filePath;
    }
    else 
        return uri.getPath();               // FOR OI/ASTRO/Dropbox etc
}

Check it & let me know if there's some issue with it. I have tested it & it works well in every case.

Hope this will help everyone.

Answer 3

Assuming you have an image folder in your SD card directory for images only.

Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT);
// tells your intent to get the contents
// opens the URI for your image directory on your sdcard
intent.setType("file:///sdcard/image/*"); 
startActivityForResult(intent, 1);

Then you can decide with what you would like to do with the content back in your activity.

This was an example to retrieve the path name for the image, test this with your code just to make sure you can handle the results coming back. You can change the code as needed to better fit your needs.

protected final void onActivityResult(final int requestCode, final int
                     resultCode, final Intent i) {
    super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, i);

  // this matches the request code in the above call
  if (requestCode == 1) {
      Uri _uri = i.getData();

    // this will be null if no image was selected...
    if (_uri != null) {
      // now we get the path to the image file
     cursor = getContentResolver().query(_uri, null,
                                      null, null, null);
     cursor.moveToFirst();
     String imageFilePath = cursor.getString(0);
     cursor.close();
     }
   }

My advice is to try to get retrieving images working correctly, I think the problem is the content of accessing the images on the sdcard. Take a look at Displaying images on sd card.

If you can get that up and running, probably by the example supplying a correct provider, you should be able to figure out a work-around for your code.

Keep me updated by updating this question with your progress. Good luck

Answer 4

package com.ImageConvertingDemo;

import java.io.BufferedInputStream;
import java.io.FileInputStream;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.graphics.Bitmap;
import android.graphics.BitmapFactory;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.util.Log;
import android.widget.EditText;
import android.widget.ImageView;

public class MyActivity extends Activity {
    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);
        EditText tv = (EditText)findViewById(R.id.EditText01);
        ImageView iv = (ImageView)findViewById(R.id.ImageView01);
        FileInputStream in;
        BufferedInputStream buf;
            try 
            {
                in = new FileInputStream("/sdcard/smooth.png");
                buf = new BufferedInputStream(in,1070);
                System.out.println("1.................."+buf);
                byte[] bMapArray= new byte[buf.available()];
                tv.setText(bMapArray.toString());
                buf.read(bMapArray);
                Bitmap bMap = BitmapFactory.decodeByteArray(bMapArray, 0, bMapArray.length);

                /*for (int i = 0; i < bMapArray.length; i++) 
                {
                System.out.print("bytearray"+bMapArray[i]);
                }*/
                iv.setImageBitmap(bMap);
                //tv.setText(bMapArray.toString());
                //tv.setText(buf.toString());
                if (in != null) 
                {
                    in.close();
                }
                if (buf != null) 
                {
                    buf.close();
                }

            } 
            catch (Exception e) 
            {
                Log.e("Error reading file", e.toString());
            }
    }
}

Answer 5

basis with the above code, I reflected the code like below, may be it's more suitable:

public String getPath(Uri uri) {
    String selectedImagePath;
    //1:MEDIA GALLERY --- query from MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA
    String[] projection = { MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA };
    Cursor cursor = managedQuery(uri, projection, null, null, null);
    if(cursor != null){
        int column_index = cursor.getColumnIndexOrThrow(MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA);
        cursor.moveToFirst();
        selectedImagePath = cursor.getString(column_index);
    }else{
        selectedImagePath = null;
    }

    if(selectedImagePath == null){
        //2:OI FILE Manager --- call method: uri.getPath()
        selectedImagePath = uri.getPath();
    }
    return selectedImagePath;
}

Answer 6

To display images and videos try this:

    Intent intent = new Intent();
    intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_PICK, android.provider.MediaStore.Images.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI);
    startActivityForResult(intent, 1);
    startActivityForResult(Intent.createChooser(intent,"Wybierz plik"), SELECT_FILE);