Suppose I have an activity to select an image from the gallery, and retrieve it as a BitMap, just like the example: here
Now, I want to pass this BitMap to be used in an ImageView for another activity. I am aware bundles can be passed between activities, but how would I store this BitMap into the bundle?
or is there another approach I should take?
I would highly recommend a different approach.
It's possible if you REALLY want to do it, but it costs a lot of memory and is also slow. It might not work if you have an older phone and a big bitmap. You could just pass it as an extra, for example intent.putExtra("data", bitmap). A Bitmap implements Parcelable, so you can put it in an extra. Likewise, a bundle has putParcelable.
If you want to pass it inbetween activities, I would store it in a file. That's more efficient, and less work for you. You can create private files in your data folder using MODE_PRIVATE that are not accessible to any other app.
If you pass it as a Parcelable, you're bound to get a JAVA BINDER FAILURE error. So, the solution is this: If the bitmap is small, like, say, a thumbnail, pass it as a byte array and build the bitmap for display in the next activity. For instance:
in your calling activity...
Intent i = new Intent(this, NextActivity.class);
Bitmap b; // your bitmap
ByteArrayOutputStream bs = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
b.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.PNG, 50, bs);
i.putExtra("byteArray", bs.toByteArray());
startActivity(i);
...and in your receiving activity
if(getIntent().hasExtra("byteArray")) {
ImageView previewThumbnail = new ImageView(this);
Bitmap b = BitmapFactory.decodeByteArray(
getIntent().getByteArrayExtra("byteArray"),0,getIntent().getByteArrayExtra("byteArray").length);
previewThumbnail.setImageBitmap(b);
}