reading ArrayList<String> of URIs into a coverflow app instead of the R.drawables

Question

i am reading the string of MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA from an ArrayList into an array so i can use the images from my SD card instead of the images in the R.drawable folder for a coverflow gallery app. and have run into a brick wall. with the problem of reading integer type vs. string type for image information.

was able to get the URIs from all the images from the SD card into the arraylist and don't know what is the next step to take.

is it worth continuing with this approach or is it better to abandon this and try another way to accomplish the task of changing the source of images for this coverflow app from the R.drawables folder to the SD card.

here is what i did

first, here is the way it gets the images from the R.drawable folder in android using an array as part of the process:

      public class ImageAdapter extends BaseAdapter {
       int mGalleryItemBackground;
       private Context mContext;

       private FileInputStream fis;

      // private Integer[] mImageIds = {
       //       R.drawable.pic01,
         //      R.drawable.pic02,
            //    R.drawable.pic03,
            //  R.drawable.pic04,
           //   R.drawable.pic05,
           //   R.drawable.pic06,
          //   R.drawable.pic07,
         //     R.drawable.pic08,
        //    R.drawable.pic09
       //   };

       private ImageView[] mImages;

my idea was to use a cursor to read the URIs like this "//mnt/sdcard/pic01.png" from the SD card and use these addresses instead of the ones in the array from the R.drawables like this "R.drawable.pic02" in the array.

this is what i did and this part worked with no problems: i got all the URIs from the images on the SD card and stored them in an arrayList, so far everything works great. i verified that it works perfectly by using a Toast to show the loaded URIs on the activity screen.

       ArrayList<String> list1 = new ArrayList<String>();

    String[] proj = {MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA};
    Cursor cur = getContentResolver().query(MediaStore.Images.Media.EXTERNAL_CONTENT_URI, proj, null, null, null);
    if (cur.getCount() > 0) {
        while (cur.moveToNext()) {
            String pic = cur.getString(cur.getColumnIndex(MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA));
            list1.add(pic);
        //    Toast.makeText(CoverFlowExample.this, "data name: " + pic, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
         //   Log.d("TAG", "ID: " + pic);
        }
       }
    cur.close();

next i tried to read these strings into the array used for the R.drawables array and this is where i got into trouble: the program uses Integer as the type for the array. so i guess this array is the wrong place to read URIs into. then if this is the wrong place. what to do now?

         Integer[] mImageIds = new Integer[list1.size()];

    for(int t = 0; t<= list1.size(); t++){
        mImageIds[t]= list1.get(t); // type mismatch cannot convert string to integer
    }

    Toast.makeText(CoverFlowExample.this, "data name: " + y , Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

the error i am getting is "type mismatch, cannot convert string to integer" for this part:

      mImageIds[t]= list1.get(t);

here is the rest of the code from the getview part of the app: i am now trying to figure out what to do next.

           public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {

        //Use this code if you want to load from resources from external source
        ImageView i = new ImageView(mContext);

            // this method is what someone suggested to use but i don't know how to use this, what do i put for "image" and how to read URIs from arrayList to this?
        i.setImageBitmap(BitmapFactory.decodeFile("image_" + position));

            // this works for reading in only one image from the SD card into the coverflow app
        i.setImageBitmap(BitmapFactory.decodeFile("/mnt/sdcard/pic04.png"));

   // when getting from R.drawable images　-->  i.setImageResource(mImageIds[position]);

        i.setLayoutParams(new CoverFlow.LayoutParams(130, 130));
        i.setScaleType(ImageView.ScaleType.MATRIX);         
        return i;

        //return mImages[position];
    }

Answer 1

As you have the URIs / file system path already, you can use one of the createFrom* methods of Drawable java doc in android docu to have it loaded.