View.post(), and when Runnables are executed

Question

My original problem was needing to know the height and width of my root View so that I could make programmatic layout changes. For my purposes, I don't necessarily need to determine this information during onCreate(); it's quite sufficient for me to programmatically add my child Views after layout of the root has completed, so therefore I'm happy to use onWindowFocusChanged() as a hook to determine when calling the root View's getWidth() and getHeight() will return valid results.

However, I see quite a few people have asked how to determine the root View's size during onCreate(). I'm guessing people want to do this for better user experience - perhaps so that users don't see the layout being built in stages (if anyone can clarify the reasons, I'd appreciate it). Now, the answer I have commonly seen given to this, such as the one here, is to post a Runnable to the root View within onCreate(). Inside that Runnable we perform the getWidth(), etc. The reason why this works is because, apparently, Runnable objects posted to a View are executed when the View has layout and / or is attached to the window.

This brings me to my question. In the API documentation for View, it doesn't seem to describe this behavior. So, can anyone tell me where it is defined and documented? Or, is it a matter of inspecting the source? Is it an absolutely and rigidly defined feature that Runnables will stay in a View's queue and only be handled at a certain point after the layout process?

Further clarification: On reading Kerry's answer and thinking it over a bit more, my basic question can be clarified as follows: In the answer given here and also in this CodeProject entry, I understand that we get around the problem of the root View's dimensions not being available during the onCreate() by posting a Runnable to the View. As Kerry points out, the guarantee is that this message Runnable cannot be executed until onCreate() has executed. I understand that layout occurs some point after onCreate, but I still can't grasp at the moment why this Runnable should execute when the View's dimensions are known.

Answer 1

I had a look at the View.post(Runnable) method and it seems to me that by calling that method you are just adding a message to the UI thread queue. The only thing that is going to be 'guaranteed' is that the Runnable will be executed sometime AFTER the method which has called post(Runnable) has completed. This assumes you are calling post(Runnable) from the UI thread but as the docs say:

This method can be invoked from outside of the UI thread only when this View is attached to a window.

I think to be sure that both your Root view and Child view both have size, you would need to call post(Runnable) from the child onSizeChanged() method because if the child has size I think it follows that the Parent i.e. Root view therefore must have size too.

Apologies if this is a bit of a rambling answer. I kind of understand what you're wanting to achieve but not 100% sure. Let me know if you want me to clarify anything.

Personally whenever I've needed the size of a View I do everything in onSizeChanged() which I do believe is the 'correct' way of doing it and it has always worked.