Moving MapFragment (SurfaceView) causes black background flickering

Question

I'm trying to implement new Android Google Maps API (v2). However it doesn't seem to go well with SlidingMenu. As you may know, MapFragment implementation is based on SurfaceView. The problem is that the SurfaceView doesn't like moving it around - I mean placing it in movable views:

• ViewPager,
• ScrollView,
• ListView,
• or the aforementioned SlidingMenu.

When you move it, it leaves a black hole in the place where its pixels originally layed. It looks something like this.

This problem can be partially solved by specifying a transparent background on the SurfaceView or even placing a transparent View over it. I just can't figure if only for me the results are unacceptable, or if I have a different problem which makes it look how it looks.

To see how it looks, please watch THIS VIDEO.

(sorry for the quality, but the problem can be seen easily anyway)

When a normal listview (the orange screen) is pulled away while opening SlidingMenu, the animation is smooth and nice. But as soon as the MapFragment appears, there's some weird refreshing/flickering/synchronization issue on the map.

Tested on HTC One S and Samsung Galaxy ACE.

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My super-duper-crazy idea of solving it: each time the opening animation starts, take a screenshot of the MapFragment (it should be possible with SurfaceView) and lay it over for the duration of the animation. But I really don't know how to do it... Taking screenshot of a map isn't possible, but maybe someone will get inspired by this.

Or maybe disable redrawing the map some other way, I don't know.

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UPDATE:

Found this.

It appears that SurfaceView can be changed to TextureView to remove those limitations. But since MapFragment is based on SurfaceView, I don't know if it can be achieved.

Another update It appears that this issue has been resolved on devices 4.1+. They just used TextureView. but on lower versions we still have to use workarounds.

Answer 1

Of course the proper solution will be for Google to fix the problem (see Android Maps V2 issue 4639: http://code.google.com/p/gmaps-api-issues/issues/detail?id=4639).

However, one of my coworkers suggested simply extending the map beyond its container. If we extend the map fragment beyond the visible region of its container, like so:

android:layout_marginLeft="-40dp"
android:layout_marginRight="-40dp"

we can reduce/eliminate the flickering. Newer devices (e.g. Galaxy Nexus) show no flickering after this hack, and older devices (e.g. LG Optimus V) show reduced flickering. We have to extend margins on both sides so that info windows are centered when they're selected.

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Update: This issue was fixed by Google on Aug. 28, but I'm guessing it still has to be rolled into a release.