How to take a screenshot of current Activity and t

Question

I need to take a screenshot of Activity (without the title bar, and the user should NOT see that a screenshot has actually been taken) and then share it via an action menu button "share". I have already tried some solutions, but they didn't work for me. Any ideas?

Answer 1

I couldn't get Silent Knight's answer to work to work until I added

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

to my AndroidManifest.xml.

Answer 2

This is what I use to take a screenshot. The solutions described above work fine for API < 24, but for API 24 and greater another solution is needed. I've tested this method on API 15, 24, & 27.

I placed the following methods in MainActivity.java:

public class MainActivity {

...

String[] permissions = new String[]{"android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE", "android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE"};
View sshotView;

...

private boolean checkPermission() {
List arrayList = new ArrayList();
for (String str : this.permissions) {
if (ContextCompat.checkSelfPermission(this, str) != 0) {
arrayList.add(str);
}
}
if (arrayList.isEmpty()) {
return true;
}
ActivityCompat.requestPermissions(this, (String[]) arrayList.toArray(new String[arrayList.size()]), 100);
return false;
}

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
...

this.sshotView = getWindow().getDecorView().findViewById(R.id.parent);
...

}

@Override
public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {

int id = item.getItemId();
switch (id) {


case R.id.action_shareScreenshot:
boolean checkPermission = checkPermission();
Bitmap screenShot = getScreenShot(this.sshotView);
if (!checkPermission) {
return true;
}
shareScreenshot(store(screenShot));
return true;

case R.id.option2:      
...    
return true;
}

return false;
}

private void shareScreenshot(File file) {
Parcelable fromFile = FileProvider.getUriForFile(MainActivity.this,
BuildConfig.APPLICATION_ID + ".com.redtiger.applehands.provider", file);
Intent intent = new Intent();
intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_GRANT_READ_URI_PERMISSION);
intent.setAction("android.intent.action.SEND");
intent.setType("image/*");
intent.putExtra("android.intent.extra.SUBJECT", XmlPullParser.NO_NAMESPACE);
intent.putExtra("android.intent.extra.TEXT", XmlPullParser.NO_NAMESPACE);
intent.putExtra("android.intent.extra.STREAM", fromFile);
try {
startActivity(Intent.createChooser(intent, "Share Screenshot"));
} catch (ActivityNotFoundException e) {
Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "No Communication Platform Available", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}
}

public static Bitmap getScreenShot(View view) {
View rootView = view.getRootView();
rootView.setDrawingCacheEnabled(true);
Bitmap createBitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(rootView.getDrawingCache());
rootView.setDrawingCacheEnabled(false);
return createBitmap;

public File store(Bitmap bitmap) {
String str = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().getAbsolutePath() + "/Pictures/Screenshots";
File file = new File(str);
if (!file.exists()) {
file.mkdirs();
}
file = new File(str + "/sshot.png");
try {
OutputStream fileOutputStream = new FileOutputStream(file);
bitmap.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.PNG, 80, fileOutputStream);
fileOutputStream.flush();
fileOutputStream.close();
} catch (Exception e) {
e.printStackTrace();
Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "External Storage Permission Is Required", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
}
return file;
}
}

I placed the following permissions and provider in my AndroidManifest.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="com.redtiger.applehands">

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />

<application

...

<provider
android:name="com.redtiger.applehands.util.GenericFileProvider"
android:authorities="${applicationId}.com.redtiger.applehands.provider"
android:exported="false"
android:grantUriPermissions="true">
<meta-data
android:name="android.support.FILE_PROVIDER_PATHS"
android:resource="@xml/provider_paths"/>
</provider>

...

</application>

</manifest>

I created a file called provider_paths.xml (please see below) to direct the FileProvider where to save the screenshot. The file contains a simple tag that points to the root of the external directory.

The File was placed in the resource folder res/xml (if you don't have an xml folder here, just create one and place your file there).

provider_paths.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<paths>
<external-path name="external_files" path="."/>
</paths>

Answer 3

This is how I captured the screen and shared it.

First, get root view from current activity:

View rootView = getWindow().getDecorView().findViewById(android.R.id.content);

Second, capture the root view:

 public static Bitmap getScreenShot(View view) {
       View screenView = view.getRootView();
       screenView.setDrawingCacheEnabled(true);
       Bitmap bitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(screenView.getDrawingCache());
       screenView.setDrawingCacheEnabled(false);
       return bitmap;
 }

Third, store the Bitmap into the SDCard:

public static void store(Bitmap bm, String fileName){
    final static String dirPath = Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory().getAbsolutePath() + "/Screenshots";
    File dir = new File(dirPath);
    if(!dir.exists())
        dir.mkdirs();
    File file = new File(dirPath, fileName);
    try {
        FileOutputStream fOut = new FileOutputStream(file);
        bm.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.PNG, 85, fOut);
        fOut.flush();
        fOut.close();
    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

At last, share the screenshot of current Activity:

private void shareImage(File file){
    Uri uri = Uri.fromFile(file);
    Intent intent = new Intent();
    intent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
    intent.setType("image/*");

    intent.putExtra(android.content.Intent.EXTRA_SUBJECT, "");
    intent.putExtra(android.content.Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, "");
    intent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_STREAM, uri);
    try {
        startActivity(Intent.createChooser(intent, "Share Screenshot"));
    } catch (ActivityNotFoundException e) {
        Toast.makeText(context, "No App Available", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
    }
}

I hope you will be inspired by my codes.

UPDATE:

Add below permissions into your AndroidManifest.xml:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

Because it creates and accesses files in external storage.

UPDATE:

Starting from Android 7.0 Nougat sharing file links are forbiden. To deal with this you have to implement FileProvider and share "content://" uri not "file://" uri.

Here is a good description how to do it.

Answer 4

This is how I captured the screen and shared it. Take a look if you are interested.

public Bitmap takeScreenshot() {
  View rootView = findViewById(android.R.id.content).getRootView();
  rootView.setDrawingCacheEnabled(true);
  return rootView.getDrawingCache();
 }

And the method that saves the bitmap image to external storage:

public void saveBitmap(Bitmap bitmap) {
File imagePath = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() + "/screenshot.png");
FileOutputStream fos;
try {
    fos = new FileOutputStream(imagePath);
    bitmap.compress(CompressFormat.JPEG, 100, fos);
    fos.flush();
    fos.close();
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
    Log.e("GREC", e.getMessage(), e);
} catch (IOException e) {
    Log.e("GREC", e.getMessage(), e);
 }}

see more in : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRCRNvzamwY&feature=youtu.be

Answer 5

If someone is getting an java.io.FileNotFoundException, following SilengKnight's solution, the problem is probably that writing in storage was not permited (Although we added the user-permission in the manifest). I solved it by adding this in the store function before making a new FileOutputStream.

if (ContextCompat.checkSelfPermission(MainActivity.this, Manifest.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE)
            != PackageManager.PERMISSION_GRANTED) {
        //Permission was denied
        //Request for permission
        ActivityCompat.requestPermissions(MainActivity.this,
                new String[]{Manifest.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE},
                MY_PERMISSIONS_CODE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE);
    }