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Glide in Android - The Ultimate Image Loading Library

When it comes to loading images in Android, there are several libraries available. However, Glide stands out as the most popular image loading library due to its simplicity, flexibility, and performance. It is widely used by Android developers worldwide, and it has become a go-to choice for many app developers.

Glide provides an easy-to-use API for loading images from various sources, such as local storage, network, and content providers. It also provides several customization options to suit different use cases. Additionally, Glide is designed to optimize memory usage and minimize image loading time, making it a perfect choice for image-intensive applications.

Getting Started with Glide​

To start using Glide in your Android application, you need to add its dependency to your project. You can do this by adding the following line of code to your app-level build.gradle file:

implementation 'com.github.bumptech.glide:glide:4.12.0'

Once you have added the dependency, you can start using Glide in your code. To load an image using Glide, you need to create a RequestBuilder object and pass the image URL to its load() method. For example, the following code loads an image from a URL and displays it in an ImageView:

Glide.with(this)
    .load("https://example.com/image.jpg")
    .into(imageView);

In the above code, with() method initializes the RequestManager instance, which is used to create the RequestBuilder object. The load() method loads the image from the specified URL, and the into() method displays the image in the specified ImageView.

Customizing Glide​

Glide provides several customization options to suit different use cases. For example, you can resize, crop, and transform images using Glide. You can also specify the placeholder and error images to be displayed while the actual image is loading or when an error occurs.

To resize an image, you can use the override() method of the RequestBuilder object. For example, the following code resizes the image to 300x200 pixels:

Glide.with(this)
    .load("https://example.com/image.jpg")
    .override(300, 200)
    .into(imageView);

To crop an image, you can use the centerCrop() or fitCenter() method of the RequestBuilder object. For example, the following code crops the image to fit the ImageView:

Glide.with(this)
    .load("https://example.com/image.jpg")
    .centerCrop()
    .into(imageView);

To transform an image, you can use the transform() method of the RequestBuilder object. For example, the following code applies a circular transformation to the image:

Glide.with(this)
    .load("https://example.com/image.jpg")
    .transform(new CircleCrop())
    .into(imageView);

To specify the placeholder and error images, you can use the placeholder() and error() methods of the RequestBuilder object. For example, the following code specifies a placeholder and error image:

Glide.with(this)
    .load("https://example.com/image.jpg")
    .placeholder(R.drawable.placeholder)
    .error(R.drawable.error)
    .into(imageView);

Quick Glide Examples​

1. How to Display Image with Glide​

Here's a static method to load an image into an imageview. You provide a url and the imageview and Glide will load the image, showing a placeholder as the image loads.

You can also set the cache strategy:

    public static void displayImage(String url,ImageView imageView) {

        Glide.with(MainApp.getContext())
                .load(url)

                .placeholder(R.drawable.pictures_no)
                .thumbnail(0.2f)
                .diskCacheStrategy(DiskCacheStrategy.SOURCE)
                .into(imageView);

    }
2. How to Display Image referer​
    public static String UserAgent="Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.1; en-us; GT-I9000 Build/ECLAIR) AppleWebKit/525.10+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0.4 Mobile Safari/523.12.2";
    public static void displayImageReferer(String url,ImageView imageView,String referer) {
        if(url==null){
            return;
        }
        LazyHeaders.Builder builder=new LazyHeaders.Builder().addHeader("User-Agent", UserAgent);
        if(referer!=null){
            builder.addHeader("Referer", referer);
        }

        GlideUrl glideUrl = new GlideUrl(url,builder.build());

        Glide.with(MainApp.getContext())
                .load(glideUrl)
                .placeholder(R.drawable.pictures_no)
                .thumbnail(0.2f)
                .diskCacheStrategy(DiskCacheStrategy.SOURCE)
                .into(imageView);

    }
3. How to Display a Gif Image with Glide​
    public static void displayImageGif(String url,ImageView imageView) {

        Glide.with(MainApp.getContext())
                .load(url)
                .thumbnail(0.2f)
                .placeholder(R.drawable.pictures_no)
                .crossFade()
                .diskCacheStrategy(DiskCacheStrategy.SOURCE)
                .into(imageView);

    }
4. How to Load Bitmap into ImageView via Glide​
    public static void displayImageBitmap(String url,ImageView imageView) {

        Glide.with(MainApp.getContext())
                .load(url)
                .asBitmap()
                .thumbnail(0.2f)
                .placeholder(R.drawable.pictures_no)
                .diskCacheStrategy(DiskCacheStrategy.SOURCE)
                .into(imageView);

    }
5. How to Load Bitmap Captcha into ImageView via Glide​
    public static void displayImageBitmapCaptcha(String url, ImageView imageView) {

        Glide.with(MainApp.getContext())
                .load(url)
                .asBitmap()
                .diskCacheStrategy(DiskCacheStrategy.NONE)
                .into(imageView);

    }
6. How to Display thumbnail into ImageView via Glide​
    public static void displayImageThumb(String url,ImageView imageView) {

        Glide.with(MainApp.getContext())
                .load(url)
                .asBitmap()
                .thumbnail(0.2f)
                .placeholder(R.drawable.pictures_no)
                .diskCacheStrategy(DiskCacheStrategy.SOURCE)
                .into(imageView);

    }

Conclusion​

Glide is a powerful and easy-to-use image loading library for Android. It provides an extensive API for loading, resizing, cropping, and transforming images from various sources. Additionally, it optimizes memory usage and minimizes image loading time, making it a perfect choice for image-intensive applications. If you're looking for an efficient and reliable image loading library for your Android app, Glide should be your go-to choice.