Android - Showing previous fragment after entering Picture-In-Picture mode

Question

I have the following navigation structure in my app:

 MainActivity    ->    VideoListFragment     ->      VideoShowingFragment
(only activity,     (shows a list of Video      (gets the URL of the video to 
 container for       items via a Recycler-        show and plays the video via 
 all the other       View, the URL of the         ExoPlayer. From here, the user
 fragments)          Video is passed to           can enter PiP mode)
                     next Fragment)

So, when the app starts, a list of Video items are shown to the user. When the user clicks on an item, the URL is passed to the VideoShowingFragment which displays the Video content to the user via the PlayerView of the ExoPlayer library. On top of the PlayerView, there is an icon so that the user can enter PiP mode, when he clicks on it.

Entering PiP works and is all fine but my question is how can I show the list of Videos after going to PiP mode? What I mean: When the user is in the VideoShowingFragment stage and decides to minimize the Video content by entering the PiP mode, how can I show him the list of Videos (VideoListFragment) so that he can browse through the list while still watching the content in PiP mode ?

The situation right now is the following: The user enters PiP mode but the user sees the Start Screen of his device while the video content is minimized in the right bottom corner.

Here are some relevant parts of my project:

<!-- AndroidManifest.xml -->
<application
        ...>
        <activity
            android:name=".MainActivity"
            android:supportsPictureInPicture="true"
            android:configChanges="screenSize|smallestScreenSize|screenLayout|orientation"
            android:launchMode="singleTask">
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

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

As mentioned, the VideoListFragment navigates to ShowingVideoFragment is clicked:

videoListFragmentViewModel.openVideoEvent.observe(viewLifecycleOwner, EventObserver{ videoUri ->     findNavController().navigate(VideoListFragmentDirections.actionVideoListFragmentToVideoShowingFragment(videoUri))})

The ShowingFragment then gets the data needed for displaying the video. I will not dive into that because it is just the typical ExoPlayer stuff.

Also in ShowingFragment, we have the logic for going to PiP mode:

override fun onCreateView(inflater: LayoutInflater, container: ViewGroup?, savedInstanceState: Bundle?): View? {
    binding = FragmentVideoShowingBinding.inflate(inflater, container, false)

    // listener on icon with ID 'pipMode'
    binding.pipMode.setOnClickListener{ enablePipMode() }

    return binding.root
}

private fun enablePipMode() {
        // set aspect ratio
        picInPicParamsBuilder.setAspectRatio(Rational(binding.playerView.width, binding.playerView.height))
        // enter the PiP mode
        activity?.enterPictureInPictureMode(picInPicParamsBuilder.build())
}

// override to make the icon on top of PlayerView eiter visible or invisible
override fun onPictureInPictureModeChanged(isInPictureInPictureMode: Boolean) {
        super.onPictureInPictureModeChanged(isInPictureInPictureMode)

        if(isInPictureInPictureMode){
            binding.pipMode.visibility = View.GONE
        }
        else{
            binding.pipMode.visibility = View.VISIBLE
        }
}

Do I need to host the VideoShowingFragment in a 2nd activity when I want to let the user watch the selected video in PiP mode while browsing through the VideoListFragment ? Or is there maybe another way to achieve what I want ?

no. I think that PiP is not the right thing for this job although it seems so. — ebeninki, Jul 14 '20 at 13:21

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 04 '20 at 19:30

PiP mode turns your hole activity into a small window... I believe that you'll need to separate the video activity. Use local broadcast if you wish to comunicate between them (like changing the video without reseting the activity) :)

In thath case, I think it is important that you let android:launchMode="singleTask" in your manifest activity declaration, so whenever you start the video activity, while there's already an instance in PiP mode, it will come out from pip mode without changes. But if you override the onNewIntent method at the video activity, you can actually change your video :)

If you don't declare singleTask, you may end up with two of the same activity.

Android - Showing previous fragment after entering Picture-In-Picture mode

1 Answers1