Android Toast Example

In this tutorial we will explain how to work with Android Toast with example. The example below demonstrates the usages of simple and customized toast in Android.

1. Toast is a solution for android developer when required to notify user about an operation without expecting any user input.
2. This provides a small popup that displays for a small period and fades out automatically after timeout. Sometimes developers use this for debugging.
3. For example, some of the app shows “Press back once to Exit” message when pressed back button in home page. Another real-time example is Gmail app, It shows a Toast, when a mail message is saved to draft.

How to Create a Toast

We can instantiate a android.widget.Toast object using static makeText() method. This method takes three parameters: the application Context, the text message, and the duration for the toast. You can display the toast notification by calling show() method.

Checkout below code snippet to show an simple toast in Android

//display in short period of time
Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "Your toast message.",
                      Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
//display in long period of time
Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "Your toast message", 
                      Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();

Toast notification in android always appears near the bottom of the screen, centered horizontally as shown in the image. However, it allows us to change its position with the setGravity(int, int, int) method. This accepts three parameters: a Gravity constant, an x-position offset, and a y-position offset.

For example, if you decide that the toast should appear in the top-left corner, you can set the gravity like this:

Toast toast = Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "Your toast message.", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT);
toast.setGravity(Gravity.TOP|Gravity.LEFT, 0, 0);
toast.show();

Creating Custom Toast in Android

Sometimes a simple Toast may not be satisfactory, and then we can go for customizing the Toast. To create a custom layout, define a View layout, in XML and pass the root View object to the setView(View) method.

In my example, I have created an XML layout named as custom_toast.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
	android:id="@+id/toast_layout_root"
	android:layout_width="fill_parent"
	android:layout_height="fill_parent"
	android:layout_marginLeft="10dp"
	android:layout_marginRight="10dp"
	android:orientation="horizontal"
	android:paddingLeft="10dp"
	android:paddingRight="10dp" >

	<LinearLayout
		android:layout_width="fill_parent"
		android:layout_height="fill_parent"
		android:background="#00AAE9"
		android:orientation="horizontal"
		android:paddingBottom="5dp"
		android:paddingTop="5dp" >

	<ImageView
		android:id="@+id/toastImage"
		android:layout_width="wrap_content"
		android:layout_height="fill_parent"
		android:layout_marginRight="10dp"
		android:src="@drawable/ic_warning" />

	<TextView
		android:id="@+id/toastText"
		android:layout_width="wrap_content"
		android:layout_height="fill_parent"
		android:gravity="center_vertical"
		android:textColor="#FFFFFF"
		android:textSize="7pt"
		android:textStyle="italic" />
	</LinearLayout>
</LinearLayout>

Below is the code changes for the activity class

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

	@Override
	protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
		super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
		setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

		Button toastButton = (Button) this.findViewById(R.id.toastButton);
		toastButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
			public void onClick(View v) {
				//create the toast object, set display duration,
				Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "This is a plain toast.", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
			}
		});

		Button customToastButton = (Button) this.findViewById(R.id.customToastButton);
		customToastButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
			public void onClick(View v) {

				//get the LayoutInflater and inflate the custom_toast layout
				LayoutInflater inflater = getLayoutInflater();
				View layout = inflater.inflate(R.layout.custom_toast, (ViewGroup)
				findViewById(R.id.toast_layout_root));

				//get the TextView from the custom_toast layout
				TextView text = (TextView) layout.findViewById(R.id.toastText);
				text.setText("This is my custom toast");

				//create the toast object, set display duration,
				//set the view as layout that's inflated above and then call show()
				Toast t = new Toast(getApplicationContext());
				t.setDuration(Toast.LENGTH_LONG);
				t.setView(layout);
				t.show();
			}
		});
	}
}

Below is the output of the above code