How to force an entire layout View refresh?

Question

I want to force the main layout resource view to redraw / refresh, in say the Activity.onResume() method. How can I do this ?

By main layout view, I mean the one ('R.layout.mainscreen' below) that is called in my Activity.onCreate(), like this:-

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.mainscreen);
}

Answer 1

To strictly answer the question: Use invalidate():

public void invalidate () Since: API Level 1

Invalidate the whole view. If the view is visible, onDraw(Canvas) will be called at some point in the future. This must be called from a UI thread. To call from a non-UI thread, call postInvalidate().

ViewGroup vg = findViewById (R.id.mainLayout);
vg.invalidate();

---

Now, when the Activity resumes, it makes every View to draw itself. No call to invalidate() should be needed. To apply the theme, make sure you do it before any View is drawn, i.e., before setContentView(R.layout.mainscreen);

public void setTheme (int resid) Since: API Level 1

Set the base theme for this context. Note that this should be called before any views are instantiated in the Context (for example before calling setContentView(View) or inflate(int, ViewGroup)).

The API doc reference is here: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/ContextThemeWrapper.html#setTheme%28int%29

Since the onDraw() method works on already instantiated Views, setTheme will not work. I have no experience with themes myself, but two alternative options I can think are:

1. call setTheme in onCreate() instead, or
2. redo setContentView (R.layout.mainscreen); to force reinstantiate all the layout.