How do we use runOnUiThread in Android?

Question

I'm new to Android and I'm trying to use the UI-Thread, so I've written a simple test activity. But I think I've misunderstood something, because on clicking the button - the app does not respond anymore

public class TestActivity extends Activity {

    Button btn;
    int i = 0;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);
        btn = (Button)findViewById(R.id.btn);
        btn.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
                runThread();
            }
        });
    }

    private void runThread(){
        runOnUiThread (new Thread(new Runnable() {  
            public void run() {
                while(i++ < 1000){
                    btn.setText("#"+i);
                    try {
                        Thread.sleep(300);
                    } 
                    catch (InterruptedException e) {
                        e.printStackTrace();
                    }
                }
             }
        }));
    }
}

Answer 1

You have it back-to-front. Your button click results in a call to runOnUiThread(), but this isn't needed, since the click handler is already running on the UI thread. Then, your code in runOnUiThread() is launching a new background thread, where you try to do UI operations, which then fail.

Instead, just launch the background thread directly from your click handler. Then, wrap the calls to btn.setText() inside a call to runOnUiThread().

Answer 2

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

        gifImageView = (GifImageView) findViewById(R.id.GifImageView);
        gifImageView.setGifImageResource(R.drawable.success1);

        new Thread(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                try {
                    //dummy delay for 2 second
                    Thread.sleep(8000);
                } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                }

                //update ui on UI thread
                runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
                    @Override
                    public void run() {
                        gifImageView.setGifImageResource(R.drawable.success);
                    }
                });

            }
        }).start();

    }

Answer 3

This is how I use it:

runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
                @Override
                public void run() {
                //Do something on UiThread
            }
        });