Outline

Building Blocks
Under the Hood
Get Dirty
Q&A

Introduction to Android Window System

Chia-I Wu
[email protected]

May 15, 2009

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
Under the Hood
Get Dirty
Q&A

Building Blocks
Overview
Interested Components

Under the Hood

Random Topics

Get Dirty
Development
Code

Q&A

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
Overview
Under the Hood
Interested Components
Get Dirty
Q&A

Outline

Building Blocks
Overview
Interested Components

Under the Hood

Random Topics

Get Dirty
Development
Code

Q&A

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
Overview
Under the Hood
Interested Components
Get Dirty
Q&A

System Architecture

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
Overview
Under the Hood
Interested Components
Get Dirty
Q&A

System Architecture

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
Overview
Under the Hood
Interested Components
Get Dirty
Q&A

System Architecture

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
Overview
Under the Hood
Interested Components
Get Dirty
Q&A

Building Blocks

There are more, but we focus on

I SurfaceManager
I WindowManager
I ActivityManager

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
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SurfaceManager

I frameworks/base/libs/surfaceflinger/
I a.k.a SurfaceFlinger
I Allocate surfaces. Backed by ashmem/pmem/?
I Composite surfaces

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
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WindowManager

I frameworks/base/services/java/
com/android/server/WindowManagerService.java
I About 9000 SLOC in one file. Poorly documented, bad
namings, ...
I (Ask SurfaceManager to) create/layout surfaces on behalf of
the clients
I Dispatch input events to clients
I Transition animation
I WindowManagerPolicy

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

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ActivityManager

I frameworks/base/services/java/
com/android/server/am/
I Manage lifecycles of activities
I Manage stacking of activities
I Dispatch intents
I Spawn processes

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

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Confusions

I An activity has one or more windows (e.g. dialogs)

I A window has one or more surfaces (e.g. surface views)
I However, in window manager, a window is called a session
I A surface is called a window
I And an activity becomes roughly a token

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

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Special Keys

I HOME key
I BACK key

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
Under the Hood Random Topics
Get Dirty
Q&A

Outline

Building Blocks
Overview
Interested Components

Under the Hood

Random Topics

Get Dirty
Development
Code

Q&A

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
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Process View

I SurfaceManager, WindowManager, and SurfaceManager are

threads of a single process (system server)
I Every application is usually a process of itself

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

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Zygote

I Is a process started on system initialization

I Preloads java classes and resources
I Forks system server
I Listens silently on /dev/socket/zygote

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

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Binder

I Early in the lifetime of an application process, thread(s) are

created and blocked on /dev/binder
I Binder is used mainly for RPC
I Fragile

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
Development
Under the Hood
Code
Get Dirty
Q&A

Outline

Building Blocks
Overview
Interested Components

Under the Hood

Random Topics

Get Dirty
Development
Code

Q&A

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
Development
Under the Hood
Code
Get Dirty
Q&A

Build System

I build/core/core/build-system.html
I . build/envsetup.sh
I showcommands
I export ANDROID JAVA HOME if non-standard

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

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adb

I ADBHOST for transport over TCP/IP

I kill-server
I remount
I pull/push
I logcat
I shell

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

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hierarchyviewer

I Display view hierarchy

I Display view
I Invalidate/Relayout

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

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Graphics: Memory Management

I SurfaceFlinger has a SurfaceHeapManager

I Every client has a MemoryDealer, as returned by
SurfaceHeapManager
I Every surface of a client also has dealer(s), from client or GPU

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

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Graphics: Memory Management cont.

I A dealer consists of a heap and an allocator

I A heap represents a sharable big chunk of memory
I An allocator is an algorithm
I Small chunks of memory from the heap are returned

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

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Graphics: Memory Management cont.

Real flow
I A client asks for a new surface, createSurface

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

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Graphics: Memory Management cont.

Real flow
I A client asks for a new surface, createSurface
I createSurface calls createNormalSurfaceLocked

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
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Graphics: Memory Management cont.

Real flow
I A client asks for a new surface, createSurface
I createSurface calls createNormalSurfaceLocked
I A layer is created and setBuffers is called to allocate buffers

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
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Under the Hood
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Graphics: Memory Management cont.

Real flow
I A client asks for a new surface, createSurface
I createSurface calls createNormalSurfaceLocked
I A layer is created and setBuffers is called to allocate buffers
I Two dealers are created from client, one for front buffer and
one for back buffer

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
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Under the Hood
Code
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Graphics: Memory Management cont.

Real flow
I A client asks for a new surface, createSurface
I createSurface calls createNormalSurfaceLocked
I A layer is created and setBuffers is called to allocate buffers
I Two dealers are created from client, one for front buffer and
one for back buffer
I Two LayerBitmaps are created, initialized with the two dealers

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
Development
Under the Hood
Code
Get Dirty
Q&A

Graphics: Memory Management cont.

Real flow
I A client asks for a new surface, createSurface
I createSurface calls createNormalSurfaceLocked
I A layer is created and setBuffers is called to allocate buffers
I Two dealers are created from client, one for front buffer and
one for back buffer
I Two LayerBitmaps are created, initialized with the two dealers
I Heaps of dealers along with info about the layer are returned

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

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Hello World

I http://people.debian.org.tw/˜olv/surfaceflinger/demo.tar.gz

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

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Many Buffers

I Surface is double buffered

I EGLDisplaySurface is double buffered
I Same technique; Different code pathes, different purposes

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

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Double Buffering

I Sofware v.s. Hardware

I Memory copy
I Page flipping

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

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Dirty Region

I Associate buffers with dirty regions

I Copy back

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

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Frame 0

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
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Under the Hood
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Get Dirty
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Frame 1

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
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Under the Hood
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Get Dirty
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Frame 2

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
Under the Hood
Get Dirty
Q&A

Outline

Building Blocks
Overview
Interested Components

Under the Hood

Random Topics

Get Dirty
Development
Code

Q&A

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System

 Outline
Building Blocks
Under the Hood
Get Dirty
Q&A

Q&A

I Questions?

Chia-I Wu [email protected] Introduction to Android Window System