Develop Reference

Loading Fragment UI on-demand

Problem:
I am currently running into a problem where my app is trying to load too many fragments when it opens for the first time.
I have BottomNavigationView with ViewPager that loads 4 fragments - each one of the Fragment contains TabLayout with ViewPager to load at least 2 more fragments.
As you can imagine, that is a lot of UI rendering (10+ fragments) - especially when some of these fragments contain heavy components such as calendar, bar graphs, etc.
Currently proposed solution:
Control the UI loading when the fragment is required - so until the user goes to that fragment for the first time, there is no reason to load it.
It seems like it's definitely possible as many apps, including the Play Store, are doing it. Please see the example here
In the video example above - the UI component(s) are being loaded AFTER the navigation to the tab is completed. It even has an embedded loading symbol.
1) I am trying to figure out how to do exactly that - at what point would I know that this fragment UI need to be created vs it already is created?
2) Also, what is the fragment lifecycle callback where I would start the UI create process? onResume() means UI is visible to the user so loading the UI there will be laggy and delayed.
Hope this is clear enough.
EDIT:
I'm already using the FragmentStatePagerAdapter as ViewPager adapter. I noticed that the super(fm) method in the constructor is deprecated now:
ViewPagerAdapter(FragmentManager fm) {
super(fm); // this is deprecated
}
So I changed that to:
ViewPagerAdapter(FragmentManager fm) {
super(fm, BEHAVIOR_RESUME_ONLY_CURRENT_FRAGMENT);
}
BEHAVIOR_RESUME_ONLY_CURRENT_FRAGMENT: Indicates that only the current fragment will be in the Lifecycle.State.RESUMED state. All other Fragments are capped at Lifecycle.State.STARTED.
This seems useful as the onResume() of the Fragment will only be called when the Fragment is visible to the user. Can I use this indication somehow to load the UI then?

The reason your app loads multiple Fragments at the startup is most probably, you're initializing them all at once. Instead, you can initialize them when you need them. Then use show\ hide to attach\ detach from window without re-inflating whole layout.
Simple explanation: You'll create your Fragment once user clicks on BottomNavigationView's item. On clicked item, you'll check if Fragment is not created and not added, then create it and add. If it's already created then use show() method to show already available Fragment and use hide() to hide all other fragments of BottomNavigationView.
As per your case show()/hide is better than add()/replace because as you said you don't want to re-inflate the Fragment when you want show them
public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity{
FragmentOne frg1;
FragmentTwo frg2;
#Override
public boolean onNavigationItemSelected(MenuItem item){
switch(item.getId()){
case R.id.fragment_one:
if (frg2 != null && frg2.isAdded(){
fragmentManager.beginTransaction().hide(frg2).commit();
}
if(frg1 != null && !frg1.isAdded){
frg1 = new FragmenOne();
fragmentManager.beginTransaction().add(R.id.container, frg1).commit();
}else if (frg1 != null && frg1.isAdded) {
fragmentManager.beginTransaction().show(frg1).commit();
}
return true;
case R.id.fragment_two:
// Reverse of what you did for FragmentOne
return true;
}
}
}
And for your ViewPager as you can see from the example you're referring to; PlayStore is using setOffscreenPageLimit. This will let you choose how many Views should be kept alive, otherwise will be destroyed and created from start passing through all lifecycle events of the Fragment (in case view is Fragment). In PlayStore app's case that's probably 4-5 that why it started loading again when you re-selected "editor's choice" tab. If you do the following only selected and neighboring (one in the right) Fragments will be alive other Fragments outside screen will be destroyed.
public class FragmentOne extends Fragment{
ViewPager viewPager;
#Override
public void onCreateView(){
viewPager = .... // Initialize
viewpAger.setOffscreenPageLimit(1); // This will keep only 2 Fragments "alive"
}
}
Answer to both questions
If you use show/hide you won't need to know when to inflate your view. It will be handled automatically and won't be laggy since it's just attaching/detaching views not inflating.

It depends upon how you initialize your fragment in your activity. May be you are initializing all your fragment in onCreate method of your activity instead of that you can initialize it when BottomNavigation item is selected like below :
Fragment one,two,three,four;
#Override
public boolean onNavigationItemSelected(MenuItem item){
Fragment fragment;
switch(item.getId()){
case R.id.menu_one:{
if(one==null)
one = Fragment()
fragment = one;
break;
}
case R.id.menu_two:{
if(two==null)
two = Fragment()
fragment = two;
break;
}
}
getFragmentManager().beginTransaction().replace(fragment).commit();
}
To decide how many page is load in you view pager at one time you can use :
setOffscreenPageLimit.
viewPager.setOffscreenPageLimit(number)
To get the resume and pause functionality on fragments you can take an example from this link.
Please try this.

i was worked with the same kind of the Application, There were multiple tabs and also Tabs have multiple inner tabs.
i was used the concept of ViewPager method, In which there is one method of onPageSelected() for that method we were getting the page position.
By the Use of this position we are checking the current Fragment and called their custom method that we created inside that fragment like onPageSelected() defined inside that fragment.
With this custom method onPageSelected() inside the Fragment we checked that weather the list are available or not if list have data then we are not making the call of Api otherwise we are calling the Api and loading that list.
I think you have same kind of requirement to follow if your Tabs have inner Tab or viewpager you can follow same concept inside of that so if your current fragment of viewpager method onpageSelected called at that time your viewpager fragment initialized.
you have to call just initialization like data binding or view initialization need to be called in onCreate() method and other list attachment and api call to be managed by the custom method onPageSelected that will be called based on ViewPager onPageSelected.
let me Know if you need any help for same.

You can try to have Fragments with FrameLayouts only in ViewPager. The actual Fragments could be added to FrameLayout in onResume() (after checking if this Fragment isn't already attached). It should work if BEHAVIOR_RESUME_ONLY_CURRENT_FRAGMENT works as expected.

I would recommend you use BottomNavigationView.setOnNavigationItemSelectedListener to toggle between the fragment UI whenever it is needed.
navigationView.setOnNavigationItemSelectedListener(item -> {
switch(item.getItemId()) {
case R.id.item1:
// you can replace the code findFragmentById() with findFragmentByTag("dashboard");
// if you only have one framelayout to hold the fragment
fragment = getSupportFragmentManager().findFragmentById(R.id.fragment_container);
if (fragment == null) {
fragment = new ExampleFragment();
// if the fragment is identified by tag, add another
// argument to this method:
// replace(R.id.fragment_container, fragment, "dashboard")
getSupportFragmentManager().begintransaction()
.replace(R.id.fragment_container, fragment)
.commit();
}
break;
}
}
The idea is simple, when the user swipes or selects a different tab, the fragment that was visible is replaced by the new fragment.

Just load fragments one by one. Create the main fragment layout with many placeholders and stubs and then just load them in the order you like.
Use FragmentTransaction.replace() from the main fragment after it loads.

Have you tried the setUserVisibleHint() method of a fragment
override fun setUserVisibleHint(isVisibleToUser: Boolean) {
super.setUserVisibleHint(isVisibleToUser)
if(isVisibleToUser){
// Do you stuff here
}
}
This will only get called when a fragment is visible to the user

How about you maintain just one ViewPager? Sounds crazy? In that case, you just change the dataset of PagerAdapter when you switch between the bottom tabs. Let's see how you can accomplish this,
As you mentioned, you have 4 fragments, which are assigned to each individual tabs of the bottom navigation view. Each performs some redundant work i.e. holding a viewPager with tab layout and setting the same kind of adapters. So, if we can combine these 4 redundant tasks into one then we will be able to get rid of 4 fragments. And as there will be just one viewPager with one single adapter then we will be able to reduce the fragment loading count from ~10 to 2 if we set offScreenPageLimit to 1. Let's see some example,
activity.xml should look like
<LinearLayout>
<TabLayout />
<ViewPager />
<BottomNavigationView />
</LinearLayout>
It's optional but I would recommend to create a base PagerFragment abstract class with abstract method getTabTitle()
public abstract class PagerFragment extends Fragment {
public abstract String getTabTitle();
}
Now it's time to make our PagerAdapter class
public class SectionsPagerAdapter extends FragmentStatePagerAdapter {
public Map<Integer, List<PagerFragment>> map = ...; // If you are concerned about memory then I could recommend to store DataObject instead of PagerFragment and instantiate fragment on demand using that data.
public int currentTabId = R.id.first_bottom_tab_id;
private List<PagerFragment> getCurrentFragments() {
return map.get(currentTabId);
}
public void setCurrentTabId(int tabId) {
this.currentTabId = tabId;
}
public SectionsPagerAdapter(FragmentManager manager) {
super(manager);
}
#Override
public Fragment getItem(int position) {
return getCurrentFragments().get(position);
}
#Override
public int getCount() {
return getCurrentFragments().size();
}
#Override
public int getItemPosition(#NonNull Object object) {
return POSITION_NONE;
}
#Override
public CharSequence getPageTitle(int position) {
return getCurrentFragments().get(position).getTabTitle();
}
}
And finally, in Activity
SectionsPagerAdapter pagerAdapter = new SectionsPagerAdapter(getSupportFragmentManager());
viewPager.setAdapter(pagerAdapter);
viewPager.setOffscreenPageLimit(1);
viewPagerTab.setViewPager(viewPager);
bottomNavigationView.setOnNavigationItemSelectedListener(menuItem -> {
pagerAdapter.setCurrentTabId(menuItem.getItemId())
pagerAdapter.notifyDataSetChanged();
viewPagerTab.setViewPager(viewPager);
}
This is the basic idea. You can mix some of your own ideas with it to make a wonderful result. Let me know if it is useful?
UPDATE
Answer to your questions,
I think with my solution you can achieve exactly the same behavior of the video as I already did it in a project. In my solution, if you set offset page limit to 1 then only adjacent fragment's is created in advance. So, fragment creation will be handled by adapter and viewpager you don't need to worry about it.
In my above solution, you should create UI in onCreateView().

Prevent specific fragment within viewpager from refreshing

I have several fragments within a viewpager, and the first fragment (TimelineFragment) is being replaced whenever the user chooses to browse a different community.
I'm able to successfully change the TimelineFragment when I changed my FragmentPagerAdapter to FragmentStatePagerAdapter since FragmentPagerAdapter does not update the fragment even when I use pagerAdapter.notifyDataSetChanged()
Hence, I used FragmentStatePagerAdapter with the following code:
#Override
public Fragment getItem(int position) {
return fragmentList.get(position);
}
public void setItem(int position, Fragment fragment) {
fragmentList.set(position, fragment);
}
#Override
public int getCount() {
return fragmentList.size();
}
#Override
public int getItemPosition(Object object) {
return PagerAdapter.POSITION_NONE;
}
The problem is whenever I move to a fragment, that fragment is being refreshed. Which makes my recyclerview within each fragment reload all lists and go to the top of that list.
My goal here is that when the user has chosen to view a different community, the timeline fragment (ALONE, hopefully exluding other fragments) will be the only fragment to reload, and load the respective list based on the chosen community.

the method onCreateView in fragment calls each time you move between 3 fragments in view pager. so the solution is:
1- add static boolean loaded=false; in your fragment
2- before calling the code that refreshes the recyclerview or any code you don't want to call add
if(!loaded){
//your code
...
loaded=true;
}

Save Data when ViewPager page changes

I'm trying to save data a user enters in a fragment to a file.
Scenario:
one viewpager and 7 fragments
A user starts in fragment 0 and can enter text into edittexts,
by swiping, using tabhost or pressing floating arrows the user can switch to other fragments.
I want to save alle entered text of the fragment the user leaves with the methods above.
I tried a OnPageChangeListener, but there i can't get the previous tab. I logged the values of the implementation methods onPageScrolled, onPageSelected, onPageScrollStateChanged.
Non of these seem to work for my needs.
onPageScrolled is called several times and shows only the current tab until it is of screen, the offset is different and not always starts by 0.0, so i can't use this reliably.
onPageSelected is the only reliable one but only returns the new current tab
onPageScrollStateChanged has no information i could use to determine the tab
I also looked into onInterceptTouchEvent in the ViewPager but this is also some times invoked several times (for MOVE events) and does not always work for every tab.
Is there a way to get this cost efficent? I want to store the data in an encrypted file and don't want to do this several times over.

Because the suggestions didn't work for my case I came up with another idea I wan't to share with others.
First instead of focusing on the ViewPager to suite my needs I thought wouldn't it be clever to led the fragment know if its changed and handle that instead.
So I created an abstract class extending the android Fragment with a boolean attribute dataChanged which I check every time the OnPageChangeListener calls onPageSelected (iterate over all fragments in the pager).
Naturally all Fragments in the pager should extend the abstract class. Furthermore I added abstract methods save() and load() to the abstract class.
So in onPageSelected(int position), after saving all changes for all fragments, which should only be one at a time, I load the data of the now selected fragment via the position attribute.
There was but one problem. If a fragment was paused and resumed the dataChanged attribute was always true if I set it in onTextChangeListeners, because of the automatic loading of widget values that android does. So I also override onResume to set the dataChanged to false.
Also every MyFragment has to handle the dataChanged attribute in the save() and load() method.
Abstract Fragment
public abstract class MyFragment extends Fragment {
private boolean dataChanged = false;
#Override
public void onResume() {
super.onResume();
setDataChanged(false);
}
public boolean isDataChanged() {
return dataChanged;
}
public void setDataChanged(boolean dataChanged) {
this.dataChanged = dataChanged;
}
public abstract void save();
public abstract void load();
}
OnPageChangeListener of ViewPager
fragmentViewPager.addOnPageChangeListener(new ViewPager.OnPageChangeListener() {
...
#Override
public void onPageSelected(int position) {
for(Fragment f : fragments) {
if(f instanceof MyFragment && ((MyFragment)f).isDataChanged()) {
((MyFragment) f).save();
}
}
if(fragmentViewPager.getCurrentItem() == position) {
Fragment fragment = getSupportFragmentManager().findFragmentByTag("android:switcher:" + R.id.view_pager + ":" + fragmentViewPager.getCurrentItem());
if(fragment instanceof MyFragment) {
((MyFragment) fragment).load();
}
}
}
...
});

Replace a fragment within a Viewpager(notifyDataSetChanged does not work)

My MainActivity contains a viewPager.
In the MainActivity.java, I set the adapter for viewpager. The adapter extends FragmentStatePagerAdapter. The fragment I want to replace is a
cameraFragment. So when the user clicks on the switch camera button, I want to now show the camera fragment, this time with a front camera on.
On clicking the switch Camera button, I remove the fragment from the arraylist of fragments I had passed to the custom adapter. I add the new fragment and call notifydatasetchanged. However, this does not result in the new fragment being added. How do I achieve dynamic replacement of fragments within a viewpager which is backed my a custom fragment state pager adapter?
Code :
mainPageFragments = new ArrayList<>();
mainPageFragments.add(new ResultsFragment_());
mainPageFragments.add(DemoCameraFragment_.newInstance(false));
pagerAdapter = new MainViewPagerAdapter(getSupportFragmentManager(),mainPageFragments);
To replace the fragment : On receiving the related event I do,
mainPageFragments.remove(1);
if (event.getCameraState().equals(CameraSwitchButton.CameraTypeEnum.BACK)) {
mainPageFragments.add(DemoCameraFragment.newInstance(false));
} else {
mainPageFragments.add(DemoCameraFragment.newInstance(true));
}
// Not Working...
pagerAdapter.notifyDataSetChanged();
Adapter Code :
public class MainViewPagerAdapter extends FragmentStatePagerAdapter {
ArrayList<Fragment> fragmentsArray;
public MainViewPagerAdapter(FragmentManager fm, ArrayList<Fragment> fragmentsArray) {
super(fm);
this.fragmentsArray = fragmentsArray;
}
#Override
public Fragment getItem(int position) {
return fragmentsArray.get(position);
}
#Override
public int getCount() {
return fragmentsArray.size();
}
#Override
public int getItemPosition(Object object) {
return super.getItemPosition(object);
}
}

Your MainViewPagerAdapter.getItemPosition is the cause of your issue.
Default implementation always returns POSITION_UNCHANGED. For pager to remove your fragment you have to return PagerAdapter.POSITION_NONE for the fragments that are removed.
Additionally your current design contradicts with the idea of FragmentStatePagerAdapter. From the FragmentStatePagerAdapter documentation: "This version of the pager is more useful when there are a large number of pages, working more like a list view. When pages are not visible to the user, their entire fragment may be destroyed, only keeping the saved state of that fragment. This allows the pager to hold on to much less memory associated with each visited page as compared to FragmentPagerAdapter at the cost of potentially more overhead when switching between pages."
Your current implementation holds all fragments in an array, and so defeats this mechanism. Correct implementation would be to create fragments in MainViewPagerAdapter.getItem method and let the adapter to handle fragments lifecycles as needed.

Thanks to #Okas. I made the following change to getItemPosition within my FragmentStatePagerAdapter subclass.
#Override
public int getItemPosition(Object object) {
if (object instanceof DemoCameraFragment_)
return POSITION_NONE;
return super.getItemPosition(object);
}
I added logs to the OnCreate of both my fragments to confirm if they were getting recreated or not. As per my requirement, only the second fragment is recreated.

Replace a Fragment in a ViewPager using FragmentPagerAdapter

I am using a ViewPager with 4 pages, and I'm looking for an efficient way to replace/switch between fragments in each page.
This is the interaction pattern that I'm trying to create:
User presses a button on a page that currently holds fragment A
Fragment A is swapped out for some new fragment B
The user does some work in fragment B, and then presses a button when he/she is done
Fragment B is removed, and is replaced by fragment A (the original fragment)
I've found a way to do this, but it seems to have significant flaws. The solution involves removing the original fragment, and then overriding getItemPosition (essentially the method described in this related question):
//An array to keep track of the currently visible fragment in each page
private final Fragment[] activeFragments= new Fragment[4];
public void openFragmentB(ViewPager pager, int position) {
startUpdate(pager);
//Remove the original fragment
FragmentTransaction transaction = fragmentManager.beginTransaction();
transaction.remove(activeFragments[position]);
transaction.commit();
//Create a new tile search fragment to replace the original fragment
activeFragments[position] = FragmentB.newInstance();
pageStates[position] = PageState.STATE_B;
finishUpdate(pager);
notifyDataSetChanged();
}
#Override
public int getItemPosition(Object object) {
//If the main fragment is not active, return POSITION_NONE
if(object instanceof FragmentA) {
FragmentA a = (FragmentA) object;
if(pageStates[a.getPosition()] != PageState.STATE_A) {
return POSITION_NONE;
}
}
//If the secondary fragment is not active, return POSITION_NONE
if(object instanceof FragmentB) {
FragmentB b = (FragmentB) object;
if(pageStates[b.getPosition()] != PageState.STATE_B) {
return POSITION_NONE;
}
}
return POSITION_UNCHANGED;
}
This method works, but has undesirable side effects. Removing the fragment and setting it's position to POSITION_NONE causes the fragment to be destroyed. So when the user finishes using FragmentB, I would need to create a new instance of FragmentA instead of reusing the original fragment. The main fragments in the pager (FragmentA in this example) will contain relatively large database backed lists, so I want to avoid recreating them if possible.
Essentially I just want to keep references to my 4 main fragments and swap them in and out of pages without having to recreate them every time. Any ideas?

A simple way to avoid recreating your Fragments is to keep them as member variables in your Activity. I do this anyway in conjunction with onRetainCustomNonConfigurationInstance() order to retain my fragments during configuration changes (mostly screen rotation). I keep my Fragments in a 'retainer' object since onRetainCustomNonConfigurationInstance only returns a single object.
In your case, instead of calling Fragment.newInstance() all the time, just check to see if the fragments contained in the retainer object is null before creating a new one. If it isn't null, just re-use the previous instance. This checking should happen in your ViewPager adapter's getItem(int) method.
In effect, doing this basically means you are handling whether or not Fragments are recycled when getItem is called, and overriding the getItemPosition(Object) method to always return POSITION_NONE when for relevant Segments.

FragmentPagerAdapter provides an overrideable method called getItemId that will help you here.
If you assign a unique long value to each Fragment in your collection, and return that in this method, it will force the ViewPager to reload a page when it notices the id has changed.
Better late than never, I hope this helps somebody out there!