Displaying Toasts

Overview

A toast provides simple feedback about an operation in a small popup. It only fills the amount of space required for the message and the current activity remains visible and interactive. Toasts automatically disappear after a timeout.

Simple Toast

First, instantiate a Toast object with one of the makeText() methods. This method takes three parameters: the application Context, the text message, and the duration for the toast.

// also supports Toast.LENGTH_LONG
Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "some message", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

You can configure the position of a Toast. A standard toast notification appears near the bottom of the screen, centered horizontally. You can change this position with the setGravity method and specifying a Gravity constant.

Toast toast = Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "some message", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT);
toast.setGravity(Gravity.CENTER_VERTICAL, 0, 0);
toast.show();

Custom Toast

You can also create a Toast that uses a custom XML layout rather than just displaying plain text. First, simply define the XML view in res/layout in a file such as toast_layout.xml:

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
              android:id="@+id/toast_layout_root">
    <ImageView android:src="@drawable/droid"
               android:layout_width="wrap_content"
               android:layout_height="wrap_content"
               android:layout_marginRight="8dp"
               />
    <TextView android:id="@+id/text"
              android:layout_width="wrap_content"
              android:layout_height="wrap_content"
              android:textColor="#FFF"
              />
</LinearLayout>

Notice that the ID of the LinearLayout element is "toast_layout_root". You must use this ID to inflate the layout from the XML:

private void displayToast(String message) {
  // Inflate toast XML layout
  View layout = getLayoutInflater().inflate(R.layout.toast_layout,
                               (ViewGroup) findViewById(R.id.toast_layout_root));
  // Fill in the message into the textview
  TextView text = (TextView) layout.findViewById(R.id.text);
  text.setText(message); 
  // Construct the toast, set the view and display
  Toast toast = Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "some message", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT);
  toast.setView(layout);
  toast.show();
}

And then you can display the custom toast using displayToast("Message");.

References

• http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/notifiers/toasts.html
• http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/Toast.html
• http://www.mkyong.com/android/android-toast-example/