Android - Prevent white screen at startup

please add this line into your app theme

<item name="android:windowDisablePreview">true</item>

for more information : https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/vitals/launch-time#themed


The problem with white background is caused because of android's cold start while the app loads to memory, and it can be avoided with this:

public class OnboardingWithCenterAnimationActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
public static final int STARTUP_DELAY = 300;
public static final int ANIM_ITEM_DURATION = 1000;
public static final int ITEM_DELAY = 300;

private boolean animationStarted = false;

@Override
protected void onCreate(@Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    setTheme(R.style.AppTheme);
    getWindow().getDecorView().setSystemUiVisibility(
            View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_FULLSCREEN | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_HIDE_NAVIGATION);
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_onboarding_center);
}

@Override
public void onWindowFocusChanged(boolean hasFocus) {

    if (!hasFocus || animationStarted) {
        return;
    }

    animate();

    super.onWindowFocusChanged(hasFocus);
}

private void animate() {
    ImageView logoImageView = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.img_logo);
    ViewGroup container = (ViewGroup) findViewById(R.id.container);

    ViewCompat.animate(logoImageView)
        .translationY(-250)
        .setStartDelay(STARTUP_DELAY)
        .setDuration(ANIM_ITEM_DURATION).setInterpolator(
            new DecelerateInterpolator(1.2f)).start();

    for (int i = 0; i < container.getChildCount(); i++) {
        View v = container.getChildAt(i);
        ViewPropertyAnimatorCompat viewAnimator;

        if (!(v instanceof Button)) {
            viewAnimator = ViewCompat.animate(v)
                    .translationY(50).alpha(1)
                    .setStartDelay((ITEM_DELAY * i) + 500)
                    .setDuration(1000);
        } else {
            viewAnimator = ViewCompat.animate(v)
                    .scaleY(1).scaleX(1)
                    .setStartDelay((ITEM_DELAY * i) + 500)
                    .setDuration(500);
        }

        viewAnimator.setInterpolator(new DecelerateInterpolator()).start();
    }
}
}

layout

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<FrameLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:background="?colorPrimary"
android:orientation="vertical"
>

<LinearLayout
    android:id="@+id/container"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_gravity="center"
    android:gravity="center"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:paddingTop="144dp"
    tools:ignore="HardcodedText"
    >

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
        android:layout_marginTop="16dp"
        android:alpha="0"
        android:text="Hello world"         android:textAppearance="@style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Widget.ActionBar.Title.Inverse"
        android:textColor="@android:color/white"
        android:textSize="22sp"
        tools:alpha="1"
        />

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
        android:layout_marginTop="8dp"
        android:alpha="0"
        android:gravity="center"
        android:text="This a nice text"
      android:textAppearance="@style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Widget.ActionBar.Subtitle.Inverse"
        android:textSize="20sp"
        tools:alpha="1"
        />

    <Button
        android:id="@+id/btn_choice1"
        android:layout_width="200dp"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_marginTop="48dp"
        android:scaleX="0"
        android:scaleY="0"
        android:text="A nice choice"
        android:theme="@style/Button"
        />

    <Button
        android:id="@+id/btn_choice2"
        android:layout_width="200dp"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_marginTop="4dp"
        android:scaleX="0"
        android:scaleY="0"
        android:text="Far better!"
        android:theme="@style/Button"
        />

</LinearLayout>

<ImageView
    android:id="@+id/img_logo"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_gravity="center"
    android:src="@drawable/img_face"
    tools:visibility="gone"
    />
</FrameLayout>

img face

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        android:opacity="opaque">

<item android:drawable="?colorPrimary"/>
<item>
    <bitmap
        android:gravity="center"
        android:src="@drawable/img_face"/>
</item>

Add this theme to your splashscreen in the manifest

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
    <!-- Customize your theme here. -->
    <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
    <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
    <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
    <item name="android:windowBackground">@null</item>
</style>

<style name="AppTheme.CenterAnimation">
    <item name="android:windowBackground">@drawable/ll_face_logo</item>
</style>

which will produce efect like this

a busy cat

for more details and more solutions you can check this BlogPost


Please copy and paste these two lines in your manifest app theme i.e res/styles/AppTheme. then it will work like charm..

<item name="android:windowDisablePreview">true</item>
<item name="android:windowIsTranslucent">true</item>

Recommended way of solving this problem is missing in the answers. So I am adding my answer here. The white-screen-at-startup problem occurs because of the initial blank screen that the system process draws when launching the app. A common way to solve this is by turning off this initial screen by adding this to your styles.xml file.

<item name="android:windowDisablePreview">true</item>

But according to android documentation this can result in longer startup time. Recommended way of avoiding this initial white screen according to google is to use activity's windowBackground theme attribute and provide a simple custom drawable for the starting activity.

Like this:

Drawable Layout file, my_drawable.xml

<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:opacity="opaque">
  <!-- The background color, preferably the same as your normal theme -->
  <item android:drawable="@android:color/white"/>
  <!-- Your product logo - 144dp color version of your app icon -->
  <item>
    <bitmap
      android:src="@drawable/product_logo_144dp"
      android:gravity="center"/>
  </item>
</layer-list>

Create a new style in your styles.xml

<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme">
    <!-- Customize your theme here. -->               
</style>

<!-- Starting activity theme -->
<style name="AppTheme.Launcher">
    <item name="android:windowBackground">@drawable/my_drawable</item>
</style>

Add this theme to your starting activity in the Manifest file

<activity ...
android:theme="@style/AppTheme.Launcher" />

And when you want to transition back to your normal theme call setTheme(R.style.Apptheme) before calling super.onCreate() and setContentView()

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
  @Override
  protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    // Make sure this is before calling super.onCreate
    setTheme(R.style.Theme_MyApp);
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    // ...
  }
}

This is the recommended way to solve the problem and this is from google Material Design patterns.


First of all, to remove the white screen read this - https://www.bignerdranch.com/blog/splash-screens-the-right-way/

But more importantly, optimize your initial load and defer any heavy work to when you have time to run it. Post your application class here if you want us to take a look at it.