How to use a ProgressBar?

Question

I have a search function (using a web service) which takes a while to load data to my inflated layout. I want to show a ProgressBar untill the data is fetched from the web service. This is a small time interval and hence I don't to use a ProgressDialog for this. I've gone through many posts and dev guide but I'm not able to figure out a way to use that in my app. I've a Spinner in my layout. Once I choose an item from the spinner drop down I pass the string to the search function which fetches as well as loads data into the inflated layout.

spinner.setOnItemSelectedListener(new OnItemSelectedListener() {

    @Override
    public void onItemSelected(AdapterView<?> arg0, View arg1, int arg2,
            long arg3) {
        Selection = spinner.getSelectedItem().toString();           

        search(Selection);
    }

I created a ProgressBar, handler as explained in the dev guide.

private ProgressBar mProgress =  new ProgressBar(SearchActivity.this, null, android.R.attr.progressBarStyleSmall);
private int mProgressStatus = 0;

private Handler mHandler = new Handler();

And say this is a new thread used to display the ProgressBar

new Thread(new Runnable() {
         public void run() {
             while (mProgressStatus < 100) {
                 mProgressStatus = doWork();

                 // Update the progress bar
                 mHandler.post(new Runnable() {
                     public void run() {
                         mProgress.setProgress(mProgressStatus);
                     }
                 });
             }
         }
     }).start();

How do I track progress of my search function to show the ProgressBar?

Thank you for reading

Answer 1

Use an AsyncTask instead of a thread. It's way easier to use and provides a built-in mechanism to be notified of progress updates.

Look at this question for a complete sample :

Download a file with Android, and showing the progress in a ProgressDialog

Answer 2

You should use a AsyncTask instead of a thread. A asyncTask let you to have a preexecute, postexecute and publishprogress which run on UI thread, and a doInBackground which run in background. There is a lot of tuts on google.

Try this one.