How to inflate another view from another view in Android

I know in my onCreate() I can inflate a view from XML by something like:

loadingScreen = (RelativeLayout) findViewById(R.id.loadingScreen);

But how could I do this from another view? Im trying to call up a loading screen by setting its visibility from GONE to VISIBLE but cant seem to figure out how to do this from my glSurfaceView

If you want to inflate a layout the code looks like this:

LayoutInflater inflater = (LayoutInflater)context.getSystemService(Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
LinearLayout myRoot = new LinearLayout(context);
View itemView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.layout_details, myRoot);

Here you first create a new LinearLayout an then inflate the layout with id R.layout.layout_details into it. The inflate method then returns the myRoot view.

Here is a tutorial about the LayoutInflater:

• Layout resources in Android

Thats actually not inflating. Inflating is the process that parses a XML layout file and creates a structure of View and ViewGroup class instances out of it (setContentView() does this for you in the background for example).

What you do is getting a reference to a view in code that you have defined in your XML layout file. To change the visibility of your GLSurfaceView you have to reference it like you did above. But remember that the View (GLSurfaceView in this case) has to be defined in your layout file.

After referencing you have to call GLSurfaceView.setVisibility() to change it's visibility.

Here's an example:

GLSurfaceView glsurface = (GLSurfaceView) findViewById(R.id.myglsurfaceid);
glsurface.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);

Of course you can use View.INVISIBLE or View.GONE either, depending on what you want to do.

If you reference a layout (such as a RelativeLayout), you may find children of this layout with the findViewById() of your RelativeLayout instance:

RelativeLayour rl = (RelativeLayout) findViewById(R.id.mylayout);
(Button) mybutton = (Button) rl.findViewById(R.id.mybutton);

But thats usually not neccessary (at least when you just started with Android) because the activities findViewById() finds all Views that are displayed, even in sublayouts. You only have to use it if you have duplicate ids in your ui structure (tbh I never had that case yet) and want to specifiy where to look for your particular View.

You can't get a reference to a View that's doesn't exists in your current Layout, or your current View, (your current Activity content) , but you can create a new View from another XML layout, using LayoutInflater from current Activity.

you can add to you current Activity content, a new View, that's what you mentioned as " loading screen ", even by showing it as a Dialog or by creating View and then add it to root layout in your Activity

I hope I helped you

If I correctly understood what you wanna do:

Supposing you have a glSurfaceView object and you wanna grab a view that's inside that one. You'll do just the same thing you did for you normal view. Let's say a button:

Button button = (Button) glSurfaceView.findViewById(R.id.buttonid);

If you meant something different let me know in the comments.

EDIT: And then you can just set the button's visibility:

button.setVisibility(Button.GONE)