Slow loading of layout - performance

Question

I have a super class which is in a library. This library take care of initializing some basic layout components and other stuff. My problem is that it takes 1.x seconds to load the layout, and shows the default layout for a while, before setting the child-specified layout.
This is the method of my super class:
public void InitializeWindow(Activity act, int layoutResourceId, String windowTitle,
Object menuAdapter, int slideMenuMode) {
super.setContentView(layoutResourceId);
super.setBehindContentView(R.layout.menu_frame);
this.menuAdapter = menuAdapter;
this.slideMenuMode = slideMenuMode;
setWindowTitle(windowTitle);
initializeSlidingMenu();
}
This is called this way:
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
super.InitializeWindow(this, R.layout.activity_home, "\t\tHome",
new MenuAdapter(this, R.menu.slide_menu), SlidingMenu.TOUCHMODE_FULLSCREEN);
}
The application works like a charm, but it takes, as I said around 1.x seconds to load the layout passed from the child-class. Why does this happen?
By request, this is my initializeSlideMenu() method:
public void initializeSlidingMenu() {
this.setSlidingActionBarEnabled(true);
getSlidingMenu().setBehindOffsetRes(R.dimen.actionbar_home_width);
getSlidingMenu().setShadowWidthRes(R.dimen.shadow_width);
getSlidingMenu().setShadowDrawable(R.drawable.shadow);
getSlidingMenu().setTouchModeAbove(slideMenuMode);
getSlidingMenu().setBehindScrollScale(0.25f);
ListView v = new ListView(this);
v.setBackgroundColor(Color.parseColor("#000000"));
v.setAdapter((ListAdapter) menuAdapter);
getSlidingMenu().setMenu(v);
}

Answer 1

To avoid such problems there are three ways in general.
Let your onCreate() finish after setContentView() call as early as possible. You can use postDelayed runnable to delay few initialization which may not be needed at early stages.
Do some task when the view is ready, it causes the Runnable to be added to the message queue of that view.
Snippet
view.post(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
}
});
If none of the above helps consider "Optimize with stubs" link : http://android-developers.blogspot.in/2009/03/android-layout-tricks-3-optimize-with.html
Hope it helps.

Answer 2

I suspect that the trouble spot for you is with:
v.setAdapter((ListAdapter) menuAdapter);
You should do this as part of an AsyncTask. It will often be very slow to execute the loading by the adapter.
Here is a snippet from a sample AsyncTask implementation:
//before starting the load, I pop up some indicators that I'm doing some loading
progressBar.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
loadingText.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void> loadingTask = new AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void>() {
private ArrayList<Thing> thingArray;
#Override
protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) {
//this is a slow sql fetch and calculate for me
thingArray = MyUtility.fetchThings(inputValue);
return null;
}
#Override
public void onPostExecute(Void arg0) {
EfficientAdapter myAdapter = new EfficientAdapter(MyActivity.this, thingArray);
listView.setAdapter(myAdapter);
//after setting up my adapter, I turn off my loading indicators
progressBar.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
loadingText.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
RelativeLayout layout = (RelativeLayout)MyActivity.this.findViewById(R.id.spacey);
if (layout != null) {
LayoutInflater inflater = LayoutInflater.from(MyActivity.this);
View view = inflater.inflate(R.layout.name_tabled_sub, layout);
NamedTableView tableView = new NamedTableView(MyActivity.this, view);
}
progressBar.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
loadingText.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
}
};
loadingTask.execute();
You can also do "PreExecute" items with the Async task, as well as update.