AndroidAndroid Utility

How To Screen Capture Programmatically In Android

In this article i will explain about taking the screenshot of the current screen with few lines of codes. It is a very handy and useful code if you play with screenshots of your app. It converts the view to a bitmap and save it in device storage for future use. I will write two functions,

  1. Function to make bitmap of the current screen.
  2. Save the bitmap as a file in the device storage.

Add Write Permissions In Manifest

Add write permission to AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="takescreenshot.devdeeds.com.takescreenshot">

    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />

    <application
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:supportsRtl="true"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
        <activity android:name=".MainActivity">
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
    </application>

</manifest>

1. Create Utility Class

Utils.java

Create utility class with two functions. One for taking screenshot of the current screen and other for saving the bitmap into a file for future use.

import android.app.Activity;
import android.graphics.Bitmap;
import android.graphics.Rect;
import android.view.View;

import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;

public class Utils {

    public static Bitmap takeScreenShot(Activity activity) {
        View view = activity.getWindow().getDecorView();
        view.setDrawingCacheEnabled(true);
        view.buildDrawingCache();
        Bitmap b1 = view.getDrawingCache();
        Rect frame = new Rect();
        activity.getWindow().getDecorView().getWindowVisibleDisplayFrame(frame);
        int statusBarHeight = frame.top;

        //Find the screen dimensions to create bitmap in the same size. 
        int width = activity.getWindowManager().getDefaultDisplay(). this method wegetWidth();
        int height = activity.getWindowManager().getDefaultDisplay().getHeight();

        Bitmap b = Bitmap.createBitmap(b1, 0, statusBarHeight, width, height - statusBarHeight);
        view.destroyDrawingCache();
        return b;
    }

    public static void savePic(Bitmap b, String strFileName) {
        FileOutputStream fos;
        try {
            fos = new FileOutputStream(strFileName);
            b.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.PNG, 90, fos);
            fos.flush();
            fos.close();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

takeScreenShot function will capture the screenshot and get the bitmap of the screen. savePic will save the bitmap into the device storage as JPEG file.

2. Call It From Activity Class

Here we are creating a directory called devdeeds if it does not exist already. You can replace it with your own directory name.

MainActivity.java

import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.widget.Toast;
import java.io.File;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

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

    @Override
    protected void onStart() {
        super.onStart();
        shareScreen();
    }

    private void shareScreen() {
        try {

            File cacheDir = new File(
                    android.os.Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory(),
                    "devdeeds");

            if (!cacheDir.exists()) {
                cacheDir.mkdirs();
            }

            String path = new File(
                    android.os.Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory(),
                    "devdeeds") + "/screenshot.jpg";

            Utils.savePic(Utils.takeScreenShot(this), path);

            Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "Screenshot Saved", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();


        } catch (NullPointerException ignored) {
            ignored.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Activity Layout

Create a layout file for the activity with a Button.

res/layout/activity_main.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    tools:context="takescreenshot.devdeeds.com.takescreenshot.MainActivity">

    <Button
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_centerInParent="true"
        android:padding="10dp"
        android:text="TakeScreenShot And Save" />
</RelativeLayout>

In SD Card

screenshot_screencapture

Capture A Particular View

Below i have add a new method called shareView() for those who want to capture a particular view only. The only change i made to the above method, shareScreen(), is to convert the view into a bitmap variable and pass it to Utils.savePic() instead of bitmap of the entire screen.

  public void shareView(View view) {
        try {

             File cacheDir = new File(
                    android.os.Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory(),
                    "devdeeds");

            if (!cacheDir.exists()) {
                cacheDir.mkdirs();
            }

            String path = new File(
                    android.os.Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory(),
                    "devdeeds") + "/screenshot.jpg";


            //Get the bitmap from the view
            view.setDrawingCacheEnabled(true);
            view.buildDrawingCache();
            Bitmap bm = view.getDrawingCache();
            //End


            //Pass the generated bitmap instead.
            Utils.savePic(bm, path);

            Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(), "Screenshot Saved", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
 

        } catch (NullPointerException ignored) {
        }

         
    }
About author

Geethu is a teacher by profession, but she likes to research new things and is also interested in writing. Devdeeds is her blog, where she writes all the blog posts related to technology, gadgets, mobile apps, games, and related content.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *