How do I make a splash screen?

I want my app to look more professional, so I decided to add a splash screen.

How should I go about the implementation?

Solution

Further reading:

Old answer:

This answers shows you how to display a splash screen for a fixed amount of time when your app starts for e.g. branding reasons. E.g. you might choose to show the splash screen for 3 seconds. However if you want to show the spash screen for a variable amount of time (e.g. app startup time) you should check out Abdullah's answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/15832037/401025. However be aware that app startup might be very fast on new devices so the user will just see a flash which is bad UX.

First you need to define the spash screen in your layout.xml file

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
  <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
          android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="fill_parent"
          android:layout_height="fill_parent">

          <ImageView android:id="@+id/splashscreen" android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                  android:layout_height="fill_parent"
                  android:src="@drawable/splash"
                  android:layout_gravity="center"/>

          <TextView android:layout_width="fill_parent"
                    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                    android:text="Hello World, splash"/>

  </LinearLayout>

And your activity:

import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.os.Handler;

public class Splash extends Activity {

    /** Duration of wait **/
    private final int SPLASH_DISPLAY_LENGTH = 1000;

    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) {
        super.onCreate(icicle);
        setContentView(R.layout.splashscreen);

        /* New Handler to start the Menu-Activity 
         * and close this Splash-Screen after some seconds.*/
        new Handler().postDelayed(new Runnable(){
            @Override
            public void run() {
                /* Create an Intent that will start the Menu-Activity. */
                Intent mainIntent = new Intent(Splash.this,Menu.class);
                Splash.this.startActivity(mainIntent);
                Splash.this.finish();
            }
        }, SPLASH_DISPLAY_LENGTH);
    }
}

Thats all ;)