How to Use Glide for Media3 Notification Images in Media3

 Use Glide for Media3: In today’s fast-paced world of Android app development, creating a seamless and visually appealing user experience is crucial. When it comes to media playback apps, notifications play a significant role in keeping users informed about what’s currently playing. Android’s Media3 library, built on top of ExoPlayer, simplifies media playback and session management, while Glide, a powerful image loading library, ensures efficient handling of images. Combining these two libraries allows developers to display custom images, such as album art, in notifications without compromising performance.

In this blog post, we’ll walk through the process of integrating Glide with Media3 to load and display custom images in notifications. Whether you’re building a music player, podcast app, or any media-heavy application, this guide will help you enhance your app’s notifications with high-quality images.

Prerequisites

Before diving into the implementation, ensure you have the following dependencies set up in your project:

• Media3: Add the necessary Media3 modules to your build.gradle file.

• Glide: Include Glide for image loading.

Here’s an example of how to add these dependencies:

dependencies {
    implementation 'androidx.media3:media3-exoplayer:1.3.0'
    implementation 'com.github.bumptech.glide:glide:4.12.0'
    annotationProcessor 'com.github.bumptech.glide:compiler:4.12.0'
}

Additionally, you’ll need to set up a basic Media3 media session. This involves creating a MediaSessionService to handle background playback and manage the player.

Step-by-Step Guide

Now, let’s walk through the process of integrating Glide with Media3 for notification images.

Step 1: Set Up Media3 Media Session

First, ensure you have a MediaSessionService set up to handle background playback. This service will manage the player and the media session.

public class PlaybackService extends MediaSessionService {
    private MediaSession mediaSession;

    @Override
    public void onCreate() {
        super.onCreate();
        ExoPlayer player = new ExoPlayer.Builder(this).build();
        mediaSession = new MediaSession.Builder(this, player).build();
    }

    @Override
    public MediaSession onGetSession(MediaSession.ControllerInfo controllerInfo) {
        return mediaSession;
    }

    @Override
    public void onDestroy() {
        mediaSession.getPlayer().release();
        mediaSession.release();
        super.onDestroy();
    }
}

This service sets up an ExoPlayer and a MediaSession, which Media3 uses to generate notifications automatically.

Step 2: Load Image with Glide

Use Glide to load the image (e.g., album art) into a Bitmap. Since notifications require Bitmap objects, we’ll use Glide’s SimpleTarget to handle the image loading. This works for both local and remote URLs.

Glide.with(context)
    .asBitmap()
    .load(artworkUrl)
    .into(new SimpleTarget<Bitmap>() {
        @Override
        public void onResourceReady(Bitmap resource, Transition<? super Bitmap> transition) {
            // Proceed to set the artwork
            setArtworkToMediaItem(resource);
        }
    });

Step 3: Compress Bitmap to Byte Array

Notifications in Android require images to be in a compact format. Convert the Bitmap to a byte array for use in MediaMetadata.

private byte[] bitmapToByteArray(Bitmap bitmap) {
    ByteArrayOutputStream stream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    bitmap.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.JPEG, 100, stream);
    return stream.toByteArray();
}

Step 4: Create MediaMetadata with ArtworkData

Create or update the MediaMetadata object with the byte array as artworkData. This metadata will be used by the media session to display the image in the notification.

private MediaMetadata createMediaMetadataWithArtwork(byte[] artworkData) {
    return new MediaMetadata.Builder()
        .setArtworkData(artworkData, MediaMetadata.PICTURE_TYPE_FRONT_COVER)
        .setTitle("Song Title")
        .setArtist("Artist Name")
        .build();
}

The PICTURE_TYPE_FRONT_COVER constant indicates that the image is the primary artwork, such as album art.

Step 5: Update MediaItem with New Metadata

Since MediaItem is immutable, create a new MediaItem with the updated metadata. Use the current media item’s buildUpon method to create a new builder initialized with the current values.

private void setArtworkToMediaItem(Bitmap bitmap) {
    byte[] artworkData = bitmapToByteArray(bitmap);
    MediaMetadata newMetadata = createMediaMetadataWithArtwork(artworkData);
    
    MediaItem currentItem = player.getCurrentMediaItem();
    if (currentItem != null) {
        MediaItem newItem = currentItem.buildUpon().setMediaMetadata(newMetadata).build();
        player.setMediaItem(newItem, false); // false to avoid resetting position
    }
}

The setMediaItem call with resetPosition set to false minimizes playback interruption by maintaining the current playback position.

Step 6: Handle Asynchronous Loading

Image loading is asynchronous, so ensure that the media item is updated after the image is loaded. You can start playback with the media item without artwork and update it later when the image is ready. This approach allows playback to begin immediately while the image loads in the background.

Code Example

Here’s a complete example combining the above steps:

// Assume player is your ExoPlayer instance
// First, set up the media item without artwork
MediaItem mediaItem = new MediaItem.Builder()
    .setUri(mediaUri)
    .setMediaMetadata(new MediaMetadata.Builder().build())
    .build();
player.setMediaItem(mediaItem);
player.prepare();
player.play();

// Load artwork with Glide
Glide.with(context)
    .asBitmap()
    .load(artworkUrl)
    .into(new SimpleTarget<Bitmap>() {
        @Override
        public void onResourceReady(Bitmap resource, Transition<? super Bitmap> transition) {
            byte[] artworkData = bitmapToByteArray(resource);
            MediaMetadata newMetadata = new MediaMetadata.Builder()
                .setArtworkData(artworkData, MediaMetadata.PICTURE_TYPE_FRONT_COVER)
                .setTitle("Song Title")
                .setArtist("Artist Name")
                .build();
            MediaItem currentItem = player.getCurrentMediaItem();
            if (currentItem != null) {
                MediaItem newItem = currentItem.buildUpon().setMediaMetadata(newMetadata).build();
                player.setMediaItem(newItem, false);
            }
        }
    });

private byte[] bitmapToByteArray(Bitmap bitmap) {
    ByteArrayOutputStream stream = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    bitmap.compress(Bitmap.CompressFormat.JPEG, 100, stream);
    return stream.toByteArray();
}

This code sets up a media item for immediate playback and updates it with artwork once Glide loads the image. The notification will reflect the new artwork automatically.

Potential Challenges

• Playback Interruption: Updating the MediaItem may cause a brief interruption in playback. Setting resetPosition to false reduces this, but it’s not always seamless.

• Remote URLs: If using remote URLs, ensure Glide handles caching to avoid repeated downloads, which could slow down the process.

• Image Size: Large images may need resizing to optimize performance. Glide’s built-in transformations can help with this.

Best Practices

• Cache Images: Use Glide’s caching to improve performance, especially for frequently used images.

• Test Across Devices: Notification behavior may vary across Android versions (e.g., Android 12 vs. 13). Test thoroughly to ensure consistency.

• Fallback Artwork: Provide a default image in case the artwork fails to load to maintain a polished user experience.

Conclusion

By integrating Glide with Media3, you can efficiently load and display custom images in your app’s notifications, enhancing the user experience. This approach ensures that your notifications are visually appealing and informative, providing users with a better interaction with your media player app. While there might be a brief interruption when updating the media item’s metadata, setting resetPosition to false minimizes this impact. As Media3 evolves, future updates may offer more seamless ways to handle metadata changes, but this method is currently the standard approach.

FAQs

Q1: Why use Glide instead of loading images directly?

Glide handles image loading, caching, and transformation efficiently, which is crucial for performance, especially in notifications where images need to be loaded quickly.

Q2: Can I use remote URLs for artwork?

Yes, but since notifications require local resources, it’s better to preload the image with Glide and set it as artworkData to ensure it’s available when the notification is shown.

Q3: Does updating the media item interrupt playback?

There might be a brief interruption when updating the media item, but setting resetPosition to false minimizes this impact.

Q4: Are there any alternatives to this approach?

Currently, this is the standard way to update media item metadata in Media3. Future updates might provide more seamless ways to handle metadata changes.

By following this guide, you can enhance your Android media player app with custom notification images using Glide and Media3, ensuring a polished and professional user experience.