Multithreading in Android A Comprehensive Guide with Examples

 Multithreading in Android A Comprehensive Guide with Examples

A powerful idea known as multithreading can significantly increase an Android app's performance and responsiveness. You may fully utilise the hardware of the device and guarantee a pleasant user experience by running numerous tasks concurrently.

On this post, we'll cover multithreading in Android in detail and show you how to use it in your own apps with the help of real-world examples.

Understanding the Basics of Multithreading in Android:

Through the use of numerous threads, you can carry out several tasks at once. This allows your programme to conduct numerous tasks simultaneously rather than needing to wait for one to complete before beginning the next, which can significantly improve speed.

Take an app that shows a list of photographs as an example. The app would have to wait for each image to load before going on to the next without multithreading, making the user experience slow and unresponsive. The software can load numerous photos simultaneously thanks to multithreading, which significantly increases speed and responsiveness.

Implementing Multithreading in Android

There are several ways to implement multithreading in Android, including:

a. AsyncTask

b. Threads and Handlers

c. Executors and Thread Pools

d. RxJava

AsyncTask:

With the help of the practical utility known as AsyncTask, you may execute a task while preventing the main UI thread from being blocked. You can extend this straightforward class to carry out background operations and then update the UI thread with the outcomes.

An illustration of how to load an image in the background and display it in an ImageView using AsyncTask is given below:

private class ImageLoaderTask extends AsyncTask<String, Void, Bitmap> {

    ImageView bmImage;

    public ImageLoaderTask(ImageView bmImage) {

        this.bmImage = bmImage;

    }

    protected Bitmap doInBackground(String... urls) {

        String url = urls[0];

        Bitmap bitmap = null;

        try {

            InputStream in = new java.net.URL(url).openStream();

            bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(in);

        } catch (Exception e) {

            Log.e("Error", e.getMessage());

            e.printStackTrace();

        }

        return bitmap;

    }

    protected void onPostExecute(Bitmap result) {

        bmImage.setImageBitmap(result);

    }

}

Threads and Handlers :

If you need more control over the threading process, you can create a separate thread and use handlers to communicate with the main UI thread.