Develop Reference

Create a full screen view over the other

I'm creating an Android app.
When I click on a menu item, I need to open an activity/view/fragment (I don't know what is the best). This activity/fragment/view need to be placed as an "overlay" of my app (it will have a transparent background and we could see the "regular" activity behind).
I'm using a navigation drawer and a couple of fragment inside my app.
First I tried this :
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<FrameLayout 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"
tools:context=".AlertActivity"
android:id="#+id/alertLayoutRoot"
android:background="#android:color/transparent"
>
<TextView
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:id="#+id/editText1"
android:text="#string/mes_favoris"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
>
</TextView>
</FrameLayout>
This is indeed showing my fragment, but this fragment isn't on top of all the others.
What could be the best way to do this (in working with Kotlin)?
EDIT : forgot to say, in this view, there will be a small slider.
Basicaly I want this : Overlay

You can use dialog fragment as it supports custom layouts like fragments and shows on top of another activity or fragment.
Here is a useful tutorial on dialog fragment.

2 activities appear next to each other depending on phone orientation

I am trying to make a stopwatch app that has Buttons that allow the user to start/pause the timer, reset the timer, and record a lap time. I would also have a Button that when clicked would bring up a new view that contains the lap times in a ScrollView.
That screen would have a Button which would bring the user back to the timer as well.
This alone would be relatively simple to do, it would just be two separate Activities. However, when the phone shifts to landscape mode I would like both screens (the timer and the lap times) to be displayed next to each other.
Is there an easy way to do this?
I was thinking about just having one Activity with two LinearLayouts inside of it (one for the stopwatch screen and one for the lap times) and having the Button that would normally switch between Activities just change the transparency of one of the view so only one was visible?
I imagine there is an easier way to do this, and I'm not sure if this solution would allow me to display each screen side by side anyways.
Thanks in advance!

I don't know of any way to display two activities at once, but I can tell you how I would solve this problem:
I would start by creating the stopwatch layout and the lap times layout in their own dedicated layout files - so in this example, we have /res/layout/layout_stop_watch:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<!-- stopwatch views here -->
</RelativeLayout>
...and /res/layout/layout_lap_times:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<!-- lap times views here -->
</RelativeLayout>
Then in /res/layout/activity_main.xml, we have the following for portrait mode:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ViewFlipper
android:id="#+id/root_viewFlipper"
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<!-- stopwatch views included in activity_lap_times layout -->
<include layout="#layout/layout_stop_watch" />
<!-- lap time views included in activity_lap_times layout -->
<include layout="#layout/layout_lap_times" />
</ViewFlipper>
The ViewFlipper is there so we can call ViewFlipper.setDisplayedChild(1) to show the lap times layout when the user clicks the button to view the lap times. Simply call ViewFlipper.setDisplayedChild(0) to go back to the stop watch layout.
For landscape mode, we have a separate layout - /res/layout-land/activity_main.xml. This layout will automatically display in landscape mode, so we don't need to handle that programmatically. We can set it up like so:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:orientation="horizontal">
<RelativeLayout
android:id="#+id/layout_stopwatch"
android:layout_width="0dp"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_weight="1">
<!-- stopwatch views included in activity_lap_times layout -->
<include layout="#layout/layout_stop_watch" />
</RelativeLayout>
<FrameLayout
android:id="#+id/layout_lap_times"
android:layout_width="0dp"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_weight="1">
<!-- lap time views included in activity_lap_times layout -->
<include layout="#layout/layout_lap_times" />
</FrameLayout>
</LinearLayout>
And that's it.
One thing to keep in mind is the ViewFlipper won't be used in landscape mode, so you'll want to check if it's null before setting the displayed child. Also keep in mind that switching from portrait to landscape will re-create your activity. If you want to save any of the view states, you can use savedInstanceState.
The advantage of doing it this way is that we don't have to write the code twice for the stopwatch and lap times layout, for portrait and landscape. Also, since we're using one activity for all of it, all the associated java code can reside in MainActivity.java.

How to use two activites in a single screen in android?

I want to display two different activities in a single screen how can i do that in android?Please if anybody has idea share it.And I don't wanna use fragments.
I want to display a screen which contains some fields and below(at the bottom of the screen) I want another screen with some buttons.
Is this possible in android?
If so, How can i do this ?

You can't have two activities in one screen. You can have only one. So, ultimate solution is Fragments.

An activity is not directly a visual component, so I'm thinking that what you're really asking is how to have a single activity display different views.
There's nothing that says you can't rerun setContentView() with a different layout/view ID. But there's another non-fragments way of doing what your probably want.
You can define more than one full-size (match_parent) view in a layout. What you want to do is set the visibility for one of them to "visible" with android:visibility="visible" and all the others to "gone" with android:visibility="gone".
Then when you want to switch the displayed view, you'll run setVisibility(View.GONE) on the outgoing view and setVisibility(View.VISIBLE) on the incoming. It's important to use GONE and not INVISIBLE or the layouts won't render correctly.
Sample layout file:
<FrameLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
tools:context=".MainActivity" >
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent" >
<ImageView
android:id="#+id/img"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:visibility="visible" />
<SurfaceView
android:id="#+id/video"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:visibility="gone" />
<WebView
android:id="#+id/web"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:visibility="gone" />
</FrameLayout>
Sample Code to switch view:
video.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
img.setVisibility(View.GONE);
web.setVisibility(View.GONE);
That said, you probably want to learn how to use fragments since you can handle switching the view along with other state in a single unit of work (a transaction). But the above approach above does work for simple view changes.

How to create sliding layout like in Google Drive tablet app or Google+ notifications?

I'd like to create an extra-information view similar to that of the Google Drive app (below) on a tablet. When the info button is clicked, this view slides in from the rightcontaining a layout. Another example would be the Google+ app with its notifications slide-out panel:. The SlidingLayer by 6Wunderkinder almost works, but doesn't fade a semi-black background over the views behind the "drawer" and I haven't found another library that does this.
If anybody has any suggestions/solutions please let me know!
Also, I've already looked at this question and none of the answers suggested there are correct either.

For posterity, here's the answer to this question. As Steve Benett's suggestion led me to discover, the correct way to do this is to use two DrawerLayouts, nested within each other like so:
<android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:id="#+id/drawer_navigation_bar"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout
android:id="#+id/drawer_sidebar"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<fragment
android:id="#+id/fragment_main_content"
android:name="MainContentFragment"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_width="match_parent" />
<fragment
android:id="#+id/fragment_sidebar"
android:name="SidebarFragment"
android:layout_width="300dp"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_gravity="end" />
</android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout>
<fragment
android:id="#+id/fragment_navigation_bar"
android:name="NavigationFragment"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_width="300dp"
android:layout_gravity="start" />
</android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout>
The innermost DrawerLayout contains the main content of the Activity, whether it be a fragment or some other layout components. fragment_sidebar is the fragment that will be swiped out from the right. Then, on the top-level DrawerLayout you have the fragment_nagivation_bar which houses the left Drawer's ListView or whatever.
Then, in the Activity Java code you have:
mDrawerLayoutLeft= (DrawerLayout) findViewById(R.id.drawer_navigation_bar);
mDrawerLayoutRight = (DrawerLayout) findViewById(R.id.drawer_sidebar);
mDrawerLayoutLeft.setDrawerShadow(R.drawable.drawer_shadow, GravityCompat.START);
mDrawerLayoutRight.setDrawerShadow(R.drawable.sidebar_shadow, GravityCompat.END);
An optional addition (but recommended, for consistency of UX) is to hide the other Drawer when one is opened, so your screen doesn't consist solely of Drawers.
I hope this has helped somebody!

This is the DrawerLayout. Have a look at the design guide, which illustrates the behavior well.
If you want to use / customize the "semi-black background" use DrawerLayout.setDrawerShadow() with a drawable. Google hands out a set of drawables here. Download the ActionBar Icon Pack and look for the drawable_shadow.9.png.
If you want that the menu appears from the right, set android:layout_gravity="end" as a property in the second child of the layout.

How to share a view across various activities

Is there any way to share the same object of the View across various activities? For example myApp has 4 activities, and every activity shows a Logo at the top of the screen. Now each activity will initiate 4 copies of the same Logo. So is there any way to get around this? And if 3 out of 4 share the same logo?

I can't say that it is completely impossible for you to do that. What I can say with almost certainty is that you should not attempt it or expect anything good to happen if you do manage it. Don't fight the framework, let it work for you. If the duplication is that much of an issue you create an abstract class that your Activities inherit from.
Also, since View's maintain a reference to the Context they were created in. If you did manage to pass a View from one Activity to another you would be creating a memory leak. Since the View would hold a reference to the old Activity via the Context it was created in.

Use seperate layout to make your logo.
Ex: title.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:background="#drawable/headercon" >
<ImageView
android:id="#+id/headerView"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:scaleType="centerInside"
android:src="#drawable/header" />
</LinearLayout>
This layout can be included in any other layout by using include tag
Ex:
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
...
<include layout="#layout/title" />
...
</RelativeLayout>