Static Toast routine for debugging

user_316117 0
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I'm trying to debug some code on an obscure Android device that does not have an ADB (Android debug bridge) driver for Android Studio so I cannot step through code on the device with the Android Studio debugger so I'm debugging blindly.

So I thought I would use an old-fashioned "printf" strategy by inserting little Android toasts with various debug information in my code where I needed them. Some of the code I'm calling this from are static and some aren't.

I made a "make toast" routine 

// make a Toast I can use for debugging
private static void makeToast(String msg) {
    Toast toast = Toast.makeText(thisActivity, msg, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT);
    toast.setGravity(Gravity.CENTER, 0, 200);  // x offset , y offset
    toast.show();
}

The "this" activity is declared thusly:

 private static PlyListActivity thisActivity = null;

And initialised in OnCreate ...

@Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        //We need another instance to avoid a static reference
        selBox = new SelBoxListener();  //was final SelBoxListener 
        RemoteControlActivity.curContext = this;
        thisActivity = this;
 . . .

Here's an example of it being called . . . 

public static void updateBillboard(final int resColor, final String imsg2) {
    //Are we created yet?
    if (plyBillboard != null) {
        plyBillboard.post(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                plyBillboard.setTextColor(resColor);
                plyBillboard.setText(imsg2);
            }
        });
    } //fi
   //!! thisActivity.finish();
    makeToast("in UpdateBillboard");
}

No toast pops up. If I un-comment out the call to finish() it exits the Activity, thus confirming I am executing the code. . .

So what am I doing wrong and how do I get my toasts to appear?

Edit: one responder suggested I needed to put the call to makeToast() inside the runnable so it would be called. But that's why I noted that if I uncomment the call to finish() it causes to Activity to exit. Indeed, if I place a call to finish() inside makeToast() it does the same thing, so the call to makeToast() IS being executed.

android debugging
2 Answers

When you look at the definition of Runnable " When an object implementing interface Runnable is used to create a thread, starting the thread causes the object's run method to be called in that separately executing thread."

new Handler(Looper.getMainLooper()).post(new Runnable() {
     @Override
     public void run() {
             Log.d("Thread", "I am on UI thread");
          showToastHere();
      } 
    });
user_3755040

My guess is that the method updateBillboard is not running inside the UI Thread, so one way to make it work is to use a Handler. For example:

private static Handler mHandler;
@Override
onCreate(Bundle...) {
    super.onCreate(...);
    mHandler = new Handler(Looper.getMainLooper()) {
        @Override
        public void handleMessage(Message inputMessage) {
            String message = (String) inputMessage.obj;
            makeToast(message);
        }
    }
}   

updateBillboard(...) {
    ...
    Message message = mHandler.obtainMessage(0, "Hello");
    message.sendToTarget();
}
user_20515420
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