Custom Error Screen Instead of Default Crash Dialog — Android

I don’t know about you but I feel very embarrassed when I deliver an app to tester or client for testing and it get crash. That moment is very painful for me.

I personally don’t like that crash alert dialog that appears when my app gets crash. So I found an interesting library that will show an error screen instead of an error dialog.

Let’s get started.

What I’m going to use:

• Kotlin
• Android Studio
• Library

After creating a new project add this dependency in your build.gradle(:app).

implementation 'cat.ereza:customactivityoncrash:2.3.0'

I am making my custom crash layout. Like this:

I downloaded this error image from here.

	<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
	<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
	xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
	xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
	android:layout_width="match_parent"
	android:layout_height="match_parent">
	<com.google.android.material.textview.MaterialTextView
	android:id="@+id/errorText"
	android:layout_width="wrap_content"
	android:layout_height="wrap_content"
	android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
	android:layout_marginTop="30dp"
	android:fontFamily="sans-serif"
	android:text="@string/ouch_something_went_wrong"
	android:textAppearance="@style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Large"
	android:textStyle="bold" />
	<androidx.appcompat.widget.AppCompatImageView
	android:layout_width="match_parent"
	android:layout_height="match_parent"
	android:src="@drawable/ic_error_img" />
	<com.google.android.material.button.MaterialButton
	android:id="@+id/restartApp"
	android:layout_width="wrap_content"
	android:layout_height="wrap_content"
	android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
	android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
	android:layout_marginBottom="50dp"
	android:text="Restart App"
	android:textAllCaps="false" />
	</RelativeLayout>

view raw activity_error.xml hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Let’s do some coding part to catch the crash event and show custom screen instead of android default dialog.

	package com.example.customerrorscreen
	import android.os.Bundle
	import android.view.View
	import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity
	import cat.ereza.customactivityoncrash.CustomActivityOnCrash
	import kotlinx.android.synthetic.main.activity_error.*
	class ErrorActivity : AppCompatActivity() {
	override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
	super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
	setContentView(R.layout.activity_error)
	/** you can log the reason of crash by adding this line of code
	* CustomActivityOnCrash.getStackTraceFromIntent(intent)
	*/
	//getting crashing intent
	val config = CustomActivityOnCrash.getConfigFromIntent(intent)
	/**
	* If config is null or not getting an intent simply finish the app
	*/
	if (config == null) {
	finish()
	return
	}
	if (config.isShowRestartButton && config.restartActivityClass != null) {
	restartApp.text = "Restart App"
	restartApp.setOnClickListener {
	CustomActivityOnCrash.restartApplication(
	this,
	config
	)
	}
	} else {
	restartApp.text = "Close App"
	restartApp.setOnClickListener {
	CustomActivityOnCrash.closeApplication(
	this,
	config
	)
	}
	}
	}
	}

view raw ErrorActivity.kt hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Now you need to make an application class that will register in the android manifest to register crash library globally in-app.

	package com.example.customerrorscreen
	import android.app.Application
	import cat.ereza.customactivityoncrash.config.CaocConfig
	/**
	* Created by Mustufa on 04/11/2020.
	* Email : [e-mail]
	*/
	class MyApp : Application() {
	override fun onCreate() {
	super.onCreate()
	CaocConfig.Builder.create()
	.trackActivities(true)
	.errorActivity(ErrorActivity::class.java)
	.apply()
	}
	}

view raw MyApp.kt hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Add this class in AndroidManifest.xml using name attribute.

Now moving towards MainActivity.kt to see this in action. We need to crash our app to see the crash screen. I am implementing a crashing code in my onCreate method.

var array = mutableListOf<String>()
array[0] = "Hello"
findViewById<TextView>(R.id.textView).text = array[1]

This will crash my app as this code will generate IndexOutOfBoundException.

Let’s run the app.

Download Source code from here.