Android – Single intent to let user take picture OR pick image from gallery in Android

androidandroid-intentcameragalleryimage

I'm developing an app for Android 2.1 upwards. I want to enable my users to select a profile picture within my app (I'm not using the contacts framework).

The ideal solution would be to fire an intent that enables the user to select an image from the gallery, but if an appropriate image is not available then use the camera to take a picture (or vice-versa i.e. allow user to take picture but if they know they already have a suitable image already, let them drop into the gallery and pick said image).

Currently I can do one or the other but not both.

If I go directly into camera mode using MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE then there is no option to drop into the gallery.

If I go directly to the gallery using Intent.ACTION_PICK then I can pick an image but if I click the camera button (in top right hand corner of gallery) then a new camera intent is fired. So, any picture that is taken is not returned directly to my application. (Sure you can press the back button to drop back into the gallery and select image from there but this is an extra unnecessary step and is not at all intuitive).

So is there a way to combine both or am I going to have to offer a menu to do one or the other from within my application? Seems like it would be a common use case…surely I'm missing something?

Best Answer

You can try doing something like this:

// ...
// Within your enclosing Class
// ...
private static final int SELECT_PICTURE = 1;

// ... 

Intent pickIntent = new Intent();
pickIntent.setType("image/*");
pickIntent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT);

Intent takePhotoIntent = new Intent(MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);

String pickTitle = "Select or take a new Picture"; // Or get from strings.xml
Intent chooserIntent = Intent.createChooser(pickIntent, pickTitle);
chooserIntent.putExtra
(
  Intent.EXTRA_INITIAL_INTENTS, 
  new Intent[] { takePhotoIntent }
);

startActivityForResult(chooserIntent, SELECT_PICTURE);

To see how to handle the activitiy's result, please refer to this question

Note: a critical point is how to determine whether the camera or gallery was used. That is shown in this code example: https://stackoverflow.com/a/12347567/294884

Related Solutions

Android – Strange OutOfMemory issue while loading an image to a Bitmap object

To fix the OutOfMemory error, you should do something like this:

BitmapFactory.Options options = new BitmapFactory.Options();
options.inSampleSize = 8;
Bitmap preview_bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(is, null, options);

This inSampleSize option reduces memory consumption.

Here's a complete method. First it reads image size without decoding the content itself. Then it finds the best inSampleSize value, it should be a power of 2, and finally the image is decoded.

// Decodes image and scales it to reduce memory consumption
private Bitmap decodeFile(File f) {
    try {
        // Decode image size
        BitmapFactory.Options o = new BitmapFactory.Options();
        o.inJustDecodeBounds = true;
        BitmapFactory.decodeStream(new FileInputStream(f), null, o);

        // The new size we want to scale to
        final int REQUIRED_SIZE=70;

        // Find the correct scale value. It should be the power of 2.
        int scale = 1;
        while(o.outWidth / scale / 2 >= REQUIRED_SIZE && 
              o.outHeight / scale / 2 >= REQUIRED_SIZE) {
            scale *= 2;
        }

        // Decode with inSampleSize
        BitmapFactory.Options o2 = new BitmapFactory.Options();
        o2.inSampleSize = scale;
        return BitmapFactory.decodeStream(new FileInputStream(f), null, o2);
    } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {}
    return null;
}

Android ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE Intent

this is a well documented bug in some versions of android. that is, on google experience builds of android, image capture doesn't work as documented. what i've generally used is something like this in a utilities class.

public boolean hasImageCaptureBug() {

    // list of known devices that have the bug
    ArrayList<String> devices = new ArrayList<String>();
    devices.add("android-devphone1/dream_devphone/dream");
    devices.add("generic/sdk/generic");
    devices.add("vodafone/vfpioneer/sapphire");
    devices.add("tmobile/kila/dream");
    devices.add("verizon/voles/sholes");
    devices.add("google_ion/google_ion/sapphire");

    return devices.contains(android.os.Build.BRAND + "/" + android.os.Build.PRODUCT + "/"
            + android.os.Build.DEVICE);

}

then when i launch image capture, i create an intent that checks for the bug.

Intent i = new Intent(android.provider.MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
if (hasImageCaptureBug()) {
    i.putExtra(android.provider.MediaStore.EXTRA_OUTPUT, Uri.fromFile(new File("/sdcard/tmp")));
} else {
    i.putExtra(android.provider.MediaStore.EXTRA_OUTPUT, android.provider.MediaStore.Images.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI);
}
startActivityForResult(i, mRequestCode);

then in activity that i return to, i do different things based on the device.

protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent intent) {
     switch (requestCode) {
         case GlobalConstants.IMAGE_CAPTURE:
             Uri u;
             if (hasImageCaptureBug()) {
                 File fi = new File("/sdcard/tmp");
                 try {
                     u = Uri.parse(android.provider.MediaStore.Images.Media.insertImage(getContentResolver(), fi.getAbsolutePath(), null, null));
                     if (!fi.delete()) {
                         Log.i("logMarker", "Failed to delete " + fi);
                     }
                 } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
                     e.printStackTrace();
                 }
             } else {
                u = intent.getData();
            }
    }

this saves you having to write a new camera app, but this code isn't great either. the big problems are

you never get full sized images from the devices with the bug. you get pictures that are 512px wide that are inserted into the image content provider. on devices without the bug, everything works as document, you get a big normal picture.
you have to maintain the list. as written, it is possible for devices to be flashed with a version of android (say cyanogenmod's builds) that has the bug fixed. if that happens, your code will crash. the fix is to use the entire device fingerprint.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Android – Strange OutOfMemory issue while loading an image to a Bitmap object

Android ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE Intent

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