How do I make a splash screen?

Note this solution will not let the user wait more: the delay of the splash screen depends on the start up time of the application.

When you open any android app you will get by default a some what black screen with the title and icon of the app on top, you can change that by using a style/theme.

First, create a style.xml in values folder and add a style to it.

<style name="splashScreenTheme" parent="@android:style/Theme.DeviceDefault.Light.NoActionBar">
    <item name="android:windowBackground">@drawable/splash_screen</item>
</style>

Instead of using @android:style/Theme.DeviceDefault.Light.NoActionBar you can use any other theme as a parent.

Second, in your app Manifest.xml add android:theme="@style/splashScreenTheme" to your main activity.

<activity
        android:name="MainActivity"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:theme="@style/splashScreenTheme" >

Third, Update your theme in your onCreate() launch activity.

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    // Make sure this is before calling super.onCreate
    setTheme(R.style.mainAppTheme);
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
}

UPDATE Check out this post.

Thanks to @mat1h and @adelriosantiago

Further reading:

• App Launch time & Themed launch screens (Android Performance Patterns Season 6 Ep. 4)
• Splash screen in Android: The right way

Old answer:

HOW TO: Simple splash screen

This answers shows you how to display a splash screen for a fixed amount of time when your app starts for e.g. branding reasons. E.g. you might choose to show the splash screen for 3 seconds. However if you want to show the spash screen for a variable amount of time (e.g. app startup time) you should check out Abdullah's answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/15832037/401025. However be aware that app startup might be very fast on new devices so the user will just see a flash which is bad UX.

First you need to define the spash screen in your layout.xml file

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
  <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
          android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="fill_parent"
          android:layout_height="fill_parent">

          <ImageView android:id="@+id/splashscreen" android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                  android:layout_height="fill_parent"
                  android:src="@drawable/splash"
                  android:layout_gravity="center"/>

          <TextView android:layout_width="fill_parent"
                    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                    android:text="Hello World, splash"/>

  </LinearLayout>

And your activity:

import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.os.Handler;

public class Splash extends Activity {

    /** Duration of wait **/
    private final int SPLASH_DISPLAY_LENGTH = 1000;

    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) {
        super.onCreate(icicle);
        setContentView(R.layout.splashscreen);

        /* New Handler to start the Menu-Activity 
         * and close this Splash-Screen after some seconds.*/
        new Handler().postDelayed(new Runnable(){
            @Override
            public void run() {
                /* Create an Intent that will start the Menu-Activity. */
                Intent mainIntent = new Intent(Splash.this,Menu.class);
                Splash.this.startActivity(mainIntent);
                Splash.this.finish();
            }
        }, SPLASH_DISPLAY_LENGTH);
    }
}

Thats all ;)

• Create an activity: Splash
• Create a layout XML file: splash.xml
• Put UI components in the splash.xml layout so it looks how you want

• your Splash.java may look like this:

  public class Splash extends Activity {
      @Override
      public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
          super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
          setContentView(R.layout.splash);
  
          int secondsDelayed = 1;
          new Handler().postDelayed(new Runnable() {
                  public void run() {
                          startActivity(new Intent(Splash.this, ActivityB.class));
                          finish();
                  }
          }, secondsDelayed * 1000);
      }
  }
  

• change ActivityB.class to whichever activity you want to start after the splash screen

• check your manifest file and it should look like

        <activity
            android:name=".HomeScreen"
            android:label="@string/app_name">     
        </activity>

        <activity
            android:name=".Splash"
            android:label="@string/title_activity_splash_screen">     
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>