How to provide animation when calling another activity in Android?

Question

I have two Activities A and B. I want to have the shrink Animation when Activity A calls B and maximize animation when Activity B calls A. I don't need the animation xml files for this.

When we call another Activity in Android it gives its default animation and then it calls shrink animation.

What I want is that the default animation should not occur and the animation that I want should occur.

Can we actually give the animation when calling another Activity?

Answer 1

Since API 16 you can supply an activity options bundle when calling Context.startActivity(Intent, Bundle) or related methods. It is created via the ActivityOptions builder:

Intent myIntent = new Intent(context, MyActivity.class);
ActivityOptions options = 
   ActivityOptions.makeCustomAnimation(context, R.anim.fade_in, R.anim.fade_out);
context.startActivity(myIntent, options.toBundle());

Don't forget to check out the other methods of the ActivityOptions builder and the ActivityOptionsCompat if you are using the Support Library.

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API 5+:

For apps targeting API level 5+ there is the Activities overridePendingTransition method. It takes two resource IDs for the incoming and outgoing animations. An id of 0 will disable the animations. Call this immediately after the startActivity call.

i.e.:

startActivity(new Intent(this, MyActivity.class));
overridePendingTransition(R.anim.fade_in, R.anim.fade_out);

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API 3+:

You can prevent the default animation (Slide in from the right) with the Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_ANIMATION flag in your intent.

i.e.:

Intent myIntent = new Intent(context, MyActivity.class);
myIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_ANIMATION);
context.startActivity(myIntent);

then in your Activity you simply have to specify your own animation.

This also works for the 1.5 API (Level 3).