In my app i have Action Bar(ActionBarSherlock). I would like to make that Action Bar static/global something like System Bar for my application, so when switching between activities only rest of view is set.
Is that possible to do when switching between activities and any ideas how to do that ?
Something like that is not possible but you can use Fragments that support 8 API 8+ From the actionBarSherlock Library thats not a big problem just do a little research.
This is not possible. You are welcome to have one activity and switch your UI via something like fragments, though.
Related
I'm having a "this can't be right moment" trying to learn Android app development. I want to add some buttons to the top bar (app bar, toolbar, action bar, etc) of my Activity. Apparently this thing is called the app bar. But when I read the docs, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills:
This class describes how to use the v7 appcompat support library's Toolbar widget as an app bar.
Why do I have to use something called "appcompat" to add a toolbar? I don't care about backwards compatibility right now, I'm just coding an app to learn. Normally backwards compatibility shims/layers are an optional thing. I just want to do this in the most straightforward way at the moment - it'll be easier for me to learn that way.
There are other ways to implement an app bar—for example, some themes set up an ActionBar as an app bar by default—but using the appcompat Toolbar makes it easy to set up an app bar that works on the widest range of devices, and also gives you room to customize your app bar later on as your app develops.
Again, this sounds like the docs are saying that the method they advocate is not the simplest and most basic way, and that there's another. Then one of the very first steps in the tutorial is:
In the app manifest, set the element to use one of appcompat's NoActionBar themes. Using one of these themes prevents the app from using the native ActionBar class to provide the app bar.
Huh? So the first step to getting a toolbar is to turn off the toolbar? At this point I feel like I can hear clown horns going off. Am I being pranked? I don't think Google realize how bonkers this all sounds to a complete beginner.
Is there a way to add buttons/actions to the default Material UI ActionBar in an Activity, without going through the appcompat package?
I am developing an android app, where I want to put action bar for phones below API 11.
I am following the below link.
http://hmkcode.com/add-actionbar-to-android-2-3-x/
I am making use of the v7 support library, and I am able to get the actionbar. But, the problem is I want to add a navigational listener or tab listener to the action bar. How is it possible.
Please help! Thanks in Advance.
You should use ActionBarSherlock. It is an excellent library of tools that allow you to use Action Bars in older phones and is widely used. The catch is that all your Activities will need to extend SherlockActivity instead of Activity and you have to be careful to call methods like getSherlockActivity() in Fragments instead of getActivity().
I prefer HoloEverywhere library
It allows much more than ActionBarSherlock, but makes your app ~3Mb bigger in size
I am sure you have not seen this
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/actionbar.html
I want to get two action bars in my application, like this:
Is it possible? If yes, how to implement it? It also must be working on Android 2.x.
Is it possible? If yes, how to implement it? It also must be working
on Android 2.x.
Yes this is possible. This is a normal ActionBar with a Spinner, a few Actions and an overflow icon(actually two, but you can only have one, so that might be almost impossible).
The ActionBar on the bottom is a split ActionBar.
You can use ActionBarSherlock for backwards compatibility.
Yet another compatibility question.
THE PROBLEM
I need to use a tabbed action bar in api level 3.0 and greater to switch between fragments. However, I also need to be able to switch between these fragments somehow in api level < 3.0.
The spanner in the works is the fact that I have already downloaded a custom compatibility library that allows me to use google maps with fragments and therefore I can't use a library.
THE QUESTION
How can I implement a tabbed ActionBar solution in 3.0 and greater and also cater for the bigger market that is 3.0 and less?
Any help would be grand.
What you want is ActionBarSherlock. It uses the native action bar for API >= 3 and provides backwards compatibility for API levels 2.x. There's also the Action Bar Compatibility sample project (listed as SupportAppNavigation, I believe). I think this is essentially the same thing.
So I managed to figure a solution a while ago, it's just taken me a while to post it here.
This is the solution that works for me. I needed to use an ActionBar but I also needed to use the MapActivity as well as the FragmentActivity hence not being able to use ActionBarSherlock.
What I did was the following:
Created a fragment called CCActionBar which handles the touching of the CCTab's by adding itself as a listener(explained below). It also inflates a layout called action barlayout which has the tabs and images arranged, just reference the tabs at run time.
Created a custom view called CCTab which represent the tabs of the action bar. When its touched it tells its listener (CCActionBar) its been touched.
In my main layout xml file have an action bar container which I show or hide at runtime depending on the API level.
Now in my main activity in my OnCreate method I check whether my API level is greater than 3.0 or not. If it is I just implement the standard ActionBar making sure my custom action bar container is invisible. If it isn't I set up my custom action bar and make sure my action bar container in my xml layout is visible.
Then I make sure that when a tab is pressed whilst using either method it is handled in the same way so once its setup you don't have to handle it any differently.
I hope this helps someone somewhere or at least give you an idea of how to proceed.
What I would recommend is to use ActionBarSherlock to get the tabbed action bar functionality.
I assume that you also need a MapView support in Fragment. For this I would recommend solution from MapView in a Fragment (Honeycomb)
(look at user1414726 answer with sample code).
I think it is a better solution than using library though it is using deprecated LocalActivityManger. But in my opinion it is a better idea than using library where every Activity is a subclass of MapViewActivity which I assume you are using.
Is there any way to change the content of the title bar when it's in Tab(If it wasn't in tab I would have done it but tried couldn't find any solution). E.g. Suppose I have created a custom title bar with few buttons on it, and now I want to change the content of the title bar(Drawables, Title and the functionality).
It would be great if someone could tell me if i can implement Action bar in versions below 3.0 ? I am creating this project in 2.1 (I'd like to create action bar from scratch).
or if there's any way beside inserting an image and placing buttons on it(This methodology would be good enough)?
If you're just looking to implement the ActionBar paradigm in pre-Honeycomb versions of Android, I suggest you look into using the ActionBarSherlock library.
The library will automatically use the native action bar when
available or will automatically wrap a custom implementation around
your layouts. This allows you to easily develop an application with an
action bar for every version of Android back through 1.6.
twaddington and pjco's answers are correct, you need to use ActionBarSherlock if you want to be compatible with every SDK levels.
I want to add you can have a custom actionbar or a custom view for your actionbar tabs using the method actionbar.setCustomView(view) or tab.setCustomView(view)
Anyway, play with ActionBarSherlock demos, there are a few cool use cases.
The other option worth looking at is ActionBarCompat, which I think comes with the SDK 14 api demos. However, ActionBarSherlock seems to support many more features so that may be the better solution.