Android View.onDraw() always has a clean Canvas

Question

I am trying to draw an animation. To do so I have extended View and overridden the onDraw() method. What I would expect is that each time onDraw() is called the canvas would be in the state that I left it in and I could choose to clear it or just draw over parts of it (This is how it worked when I used a SurfaceView) but each time the canvas comes back already cleared. Is there a way that I can not have it cleared? Or maybe save the previous state into a Bitmap so I can just draw that Bitmap and then draw over top of it?

Answer 1

I'm not sure if there is a way or not. But for my custom views I either redraw everything each time onDraw() is called, or draw to a bitmap and then draw the bitmap to the canvas (like you suggested in your question).

Here is how i do it

class A extends View {

    private Canvas canvas;
    private Bitmap bitmap;

    protected void onSizeChanged(int w, int h, int oldw, int oldh) {
        if (bitmap != null) {
            bitmap .recycle();
        }
        canvas= new Canvas();
        bitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(w, h, Bitmap.Config.ARGB_8888);
        canvas.setBitmap(bitmap);
    }
    public void destroy() {
        if (bitmap != null) {
            bitmap.recycle();
        }
    }
    public void onDraw(Canvas c) {
      //draw onto the canvas if needed (maybe only the parts of animation that changed)
      canvas.drawRect(0,0,10,10,paint);

      //draw the bitmap to the real canvas c
      c.drawBitmap(bitmap, 
          new Rect(0,0,bitmap.getWidth(),bitmap.getHeight()), 
          new Rect(0,0,bitmap.getWidth(),bitmap.getHeight()), null);
    }
}