Develop Reference

Switching between activities in android design

I'd like to make an application using the DJI SDK. I'm very new to Android development, and I'd like the application to be able to do two things: show the plane's current gps on a map and also connect to the plane's camera.
So, is it better from a design standpoint to show the plane's current gps on a map, and then hide the plane's camera view until a button is clicked to toggle the view? Or is it better to make an entire new activity to show the camera view or map, and then toggle between activities but save the information on each activity so that when I switch back, I can still see the current state of the aircraft from the current viewpoint?
Which is better when considering design, memory/battery usage, and scalability?

What you can do is to have a activity with a google map as base layout (it's a fragment i know) and put an Frame Layout on top of it, and by clicking on the frame layout you can increase and decrease the size of the camera view.
I did it like that way, and works great for me.

MapPolaris and showing point bubble using button maps

I'm using Polaris map library in my android app.
https://github.com/cyrilmottier/Polaris
I've Google Map with some geo points. I'm reading them from database. I've added two buttons on the map activity - "next" and "previous" to navigate between points.
mc.animateTo(geopoints.get(arrayID));
"arrayID" is the id of the next geo point and "mc" is map controller.
It works great but I want to add one more feature.
I want annotation to be visible by default while moving between points. After click on the "next" button I want to be moved to the next point on my map and it's annotation should be visible (not only after clicking on it).
Probably there is an easy way to do it.
I should probably do something with calloutView but I can't figure it out how to do that.
I made something like this. But it's not working properly.
MapCalloutView calloutView;
calloutView = new MapCalloutView(getApplicationContext());
calloutView.setDisclosureEnabled(true);
calloutView.setClickable(true); calloutView.setLeftAccessoryView(getLayoutInflater().inflate(R.layout.accessory, calloutView, false));
calloutView.show(mMapView, geopoints.get(arrayID), false);
calloutView.setData(annotations.get(arrayID));
It is showing me bubble but it creates new calloutView which is wrong I think. For example Polaris listeners are not working. I can't deselect callout etc...

My mistake! It was so easy...
I don't need to play with MapcalloutView in Polaris.
mMapView.setSelectedAnnotation(arrayID);

android - Animation prevents click event

I'm new on game dev for Android.
I have a game where I need to click on moving Buttons or TextViews(not important).
I extended FrameLayout class and added some Buttons(through addView method). Then I tried to use TranslateAnimation, but it seems it doesn't updates coordinates for click event (i.e. when I click on the moving button on new position, the event is not handling, but when I click on the origin place(where it has started moving), the event catches even if the button left this place).
Question: How to create a moveable label(or button) that handles click events? Do I need to use tricks like hit testing? Or, may be I use completely wrong approach for games(e.g. I need to draw text instead of adding the views in layout)? I will be happy if you can suggest another solution.

This is limitation of the Animation in Android. They fixed that in Android 3.0. Read here for more information http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/02/animation-in-honeycomb.html
An excerpt:
"Finally, the previous animations changed the visual appearance of the target objects... but they didn't actually change the objects themselves. You may have run into this problem. Let's say you want to move a Button from one side of the screen to the other. You can use a TranslateAnimation to do so, and the button will happily glide along to the other side of the screen. And when the animation is done, it will gladly snap back into its original location. So you find the setFillAfter(true) method on Animation and try it again. This time the button stays in place at the location to which it was animated. And you can verify that by clicking on it - Hey! How come the button isn't clicking? The problem is that the animation changes where the button is drawn, but not where the button physically exists within the container. If you want to click on the button, you'll have to click the location that it used to live in. Or, as a more effective solution (and one just a tad more useful to your users), you'll have to write your code to actually change the location of the button in the layout when the animation finishes."

Maps Activity single mapview

I have a map views which is have some markers on the map and a back button to the main page.
I also have a list of textview which is when selected, it will open a new page that have a button "View Map". The button "view map" will open up a map.
Each selected page has different map view which is different markers on it.
The problem is :
It works fine when I select the list of textview and "view map" button. The button back also functioning well. However, when i select another list and click the button view map, debug force close appear. I look for the solutions and the DDMS shows that "you are only allowed to have a single mapview in a mapactivity". How i'm going to fix this problem with the simpler ways without create another class or create new activity in android manifest.?

Refactor your map activity in a way so you can pass a bunch of data to it which will contain the information about the locations to be displayed. By doing this you can mark different sets of places on you map dynamically. For this you can either use on Overlay class in you map activity or for each set of markers an own Overlay class.
This should made it possible to use one MapView multiple times.
Another thing you should avoid is displaying a back button. Normally you don't need one as every Android device has a back button by design. So another back button might confuse your users.

Android Map Marker-New Screen

I’m new to development, specifically Android. Through tutorials, I’ve managed to display a map with a marker for a building that displays a “toast” box with text identifying that building, when tapped (I fashioned it after the “Noo Yawk” example). I need to display a new full screen with a photo of that building and text describing it, and use the back button to return to the map. I need to do this for at least 30 buildings.
Do I need to start a new activity for each building? It would seem complicated and resource intensive. If so, where will the photo and text reside? Do I need to have a button in the layout to call the map again? Or is there a simpler way to do this? Given the number of buildings, will content management or a database be required?
Thanks in advance and forgive my ignorance. I’ve parsed so many articles and tutorials that I’m becoming confused.

I would just show Dialog with ImageView (photo), TextView (information) and Button (to close Dialog).
Android dialog Screen Example
I think it would be better to keep photo and info inside database and pass them into Dialog before show.

You can display any view on top of the view. Add marker to your map and listen for onClick events on your marker. (see https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/android/reference/com/google/android/gms/maps/GoogleMap.OnMarkerClickListener)
Within the onClick event you show a view on top of the map.
Do not try to use the InfoWindows of the Maps API as the InfoWindows are rendered as an image and not as a live view. Therefor async loading of your images is not possible with InfoWindows.