How to make a splash screen in android java – Android splash tutorial

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A splash screen on android or a splash activity is an activity that is shown first when the app is opened.

It is not important to have a splash screen in android but having a splash screen can make your app look professional or standard, it can also be used as a waiting or progress indicator when an app is loading resources data in the background when launching.

This tutorial will help you to make a simple splash screen app.

How does a splash activity work?

As i mentioned above, splash activity is the first activity that is launched when an android app opened, the splash screen can be shown for some seconds to some minutes, or until the background loading of the app is complete, and then the splash Activity will open another activity, for example, the MainActivity – after a set time.

Some splash screen can be shown without an activity, for example – by changing some values in the resources folders, like – Styles.xml, colors, themes etc, but in this tutorial, we will learn to create a splash screen with set time.

So let’s begin the Splash tutorial

Start New android project

In android studio, start a new android project,

Click Next and choose Empty Activity, click Next

Now wait until the project building finishes.

Create a New Activity

Select File > New > Activity > Empty Activity

This will be the Splash Activity of our app

Rename this activity to SplashActivity and click finish

Next step is editing the android manifest to set the SplashActivity as launcher Activity

Editing the Android Manifest

To load the splash Screen, the first activity (launcher activity) must be the SplashActivity. right now,  the first activity is MainActivity,  we need change the MainActivity to SplashActivity  in order for the Splash screen to be shown.

How to make an activity as launcher activity in android java

To make the SplashActivity as launcher activity, we need change it’s intent filter, to change the intent filter from MainActivity to SplashActivity, refer to this screenshot

Or you can copy this code to your manifest

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.example.myapp.myapplication">

    <application
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:roundIcon="@mipmap/ic_launcher_round"
        android:supportsRtl="true"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
        <activity android:name=".MainActivity">
            
        </activity>
        <activity android:name=".SplashActivity">
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>

        </activity>
    </application>

</manifest>

Next, we need edit the activity_splash.xml, and the SplashActivity.java files

Editing activity_splash.xml, and the SplashActivity.java

For the splash screen to show something when launched, we should add something like an imageview or textview or both into it. here we will add just a textview in the activity_splash.xml, so you can see the splash screen in action.

Open the activity_splash.xml and add this text view

<TextView
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="85dp"
        android:gravity="center"
        android:text="WELCOME SPLASH"
        android:textSize="70sp"
        tools:layout_editor_absoluteX="0dp"
        tools:layout_editor_absoluteY="341dp" />

Open SplashActivity.java and enter this code below oncreate method

int SPLASH_TIME_OUT = 700;
       new Handler().postDelayed(new Runnable() {

           /*
            * Showing splash screen with a timer. This will be useful when you
            * want to show case your app logo / company
            */

           @Override
           public void run() {
               // This method will be executed once the timer is over
               // Start your app main activity
               Intent i = new Intent(SplashActivity .this, MainActivity.class);
               startActivity(i);
               // close this activity
               finish();
           }
       }, SPLASH_TIME_OUT);
   }}

So this is it, if you have any questions, just drop a comment below