How to Create Android Image Picker

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In my previous tutorial on how to select  and crop image on Android, i’ve explained how to create image picker/chooser to select an image from sdcard or camera then crop the selected image. The tutorial is quite advanced and on many cases in our application, we only need to select the image without cropping it. So i made a simplified example to show how to create an image chooser.

public class MainActivity extends Activity {
	private Uri mImageCaptureUri;
	private ImageView mImageView;

	private static final int PICK_FROM_CAMERA = 1;
	private static final int PICK_FROM_FILE = 2;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

        setContentView(R.layout.main);

        final String [] items			= new String [] {"From Camera", "From SD Card"};
		ArrayAdapter<String> adapter	= new ArrayAdapter<String> (this, android.R.layout.select_dialog_item,items);
		AlertDialog.Builder builder		= new AlertDialog.Builder(this);

		builder.setTitle("Select Image");
		builder.setAdapter( adapter, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
			public void onClick( DialogInterface dialog, int item ) {
				if (item == 0) {
					Intent intent 	 = new Intent(MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE);
					File file		 = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory(),
							   			"tmp_avatar_" + String.valueOf(System.currentTimeMillis()) + ".jpg");
					mImageCaptureUri = Uri.fromFile(file);

					try {
						intent.putExtra(android.provider.MediaStore.EXTRA_OUTPUT, mImageCaptureUri);
						intent.putExtra("return-data", true);

						startActivityForResult(intent, PICK_FROM_CAMERA);
					} catch (Exception e) {
						e.printStackTrace();
					}

					dialog.cancel();
				} else {
					Intent intent = new Intent();

	                intent.setType("image/*");
	                intent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_GET_CONTENT);

	                startActivityForResult(Intent.createChooser(intent, "Complete action using"), PICK_FROM_FILE);
				}
			}
		} );

		final AlertDialog dialog = builder.create();

		mImageView = (ImageView) findViewById(R.id.iv_pic);

		((Button) findViewById(R.id.btn_choose)).setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
			@Override
			public void onClick(View v) {
				dialog.show();
			}
		});
    }

    @Override
	protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
	    if (resultCode != RESULT_OK) return;

		Bitmap bitmap 	= null;
		String path		= "";

		if (requestCode == PICK_FROM_FILE) {
			mImageCaptureUri = data.getData();
			path = getRealPathFromURI(mImageCaptureUri); //from Gallery

			if (path == null)
				path = mImageCaptureUri.getPath(); //from File Manager

			if (path != null)
				bitmap 	= BitmapFactory.decodeFile(path);
		} else {
			path	= mImageCaptureUri.getPath();
			bitmap  = BitmapFactory.decodeFile(path);
		}

		mImageView.setImageBitmap(bitmap);
	}

	public String getRealPathFromURI(Uri contentUri) {
        String [] proj 		= {MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA};
        Cursor cursor 		= managedQuery( contentUri, proj, null, null,null);

        if (cursor == null) return null;

        int column_index 	= cursor.getColumnIndexOrThrow(MediaStore.Images.Media.DATA);

        cursor.moveToFirst();

        return cursor.getString(column_index);
	}
}

The code from my sample project above shows how to create a dialog that shows two options to select the image source. The first is from Camera, where the picture is taken directly from camera, and the second is from saved images on sdcard.

line 14: Define two image source options, From Camera and From SD Card.

line 16-48: Setup the image picker dialog.

line 22: If user choose to take picture from Camera, create an intent to open Camera app with MediaStore.ACTION_IMAGE_CAPTURE action.

line 23: Create temporary file to hold the image from Camera.

line 24: Get the uri of temporary file

line 39: If user choose to select image from sdcard, start the intent to open image chooser dialog. The image chooser dialog will display list File Manager (if exist) apps and default Gallery app.

line 55: show the image picker dialog.

line 61: Override the onActivityResult method to handle the selected image.

line 67: If user selects image from sdcard, get the uri of selected image (line 68)

line 69: Assume user selects the image from sdcard using Gallery app. The uri from Gallery app does not give the real path to selected image, so it has to be resolved on content provider. Method getRealPathFromURI used to resolve the real path from the uri.

line 71: If the path is null, assume user selects the image using File Manager app. File Manager app returns different information than Gallery app. To get the real path to selected image, use getImagePath method from the uri (line 72).

line 75: Get the bitmap.

line 77: If user choose to take picture from camera, get the real path of temporary file that previously defined on line 24-25.

line 78: Get the bitmap.

line 81: Display the bitmap on image view.

Download source code of this tutorial on my github page

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