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Dynamically show Activity as dialog

I have an Activity that I have already implemented sometime ago.
It involves around making a in app purchase, so all the logic is relatively self contained. it doesn't need to care about anything else.
Now, i wish to make that Activity to optionally show up in a dialog in some other activity. Is there a quick way to do that? I still need to keep the old behavior however, where the activity show up as a regular screen.
So is there someway that I could launch the activity with that make it show up as a dialog?
Thanks

You cant show activity as dialog.
Your options are:
1: Open the other activity with some boolean extra like "showDialog", true
Intent intent = new Intent(this, OtherActivity.class);
intent.putExtra("showDialog", true);
and in the other activity in (for example) onCreate:
Boolean showDialog = getIntent().getExtras().getBoolean("showDialog");
if (showDialog) {
// Code to show dialog
}
2: Create a DialogFragment and show it in your original activity. This custom DialogFragment you can use on both activities
https://guides.codepath.com/android/Using-DialogFragment

Probably your cleanest option depending on how complex your Activity is, is to create a new DialogFragment based on your current activity.
A DialogFragment is basically a Fragment, so has a relatively similar set of lifecycle callbacks to your Activity so it shouldn't be too difficult to re-work as a DialogFragment.
If the in-app purchase framework has specific callback requirements with an Activity then you will need to take that into account.
Another separate option would be to mock the appearance of a Dialog, by creating an Activity that may be transparent around the border of the main content.

Just Inflate the layout one button click on onCreate Method.
WhAT I WILL SUGGEST IS try alert box and in place of normal layout inflate you activity layout .
these might help

The easiest way to do that is to apply a dialog theme to the activity:
<activity android:theme="#style/Theme.AppCompat.Dialog" />
Or in the code:
#Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
setTheme(R.style.Theme_AppCompat_Dialog);
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.test);
}
You can customize parameters of the theme in styles.xml, e.g. dim enabled/disabled, click outside behavior.
The crucial point is to perform setTheme() before super.onCreate(), because Theme is immutable, once set through super.onCreate() it cannot be mutated later.

Too many Activities in Android App. Any alternatives?

I am creating my first app. In this app, I have an expandable list with many items. When I select any of these items, I want several paragraphs to be displayed. Do I need to create an Activity for each of these items if text is the only thing I want displayed? I know that there has to be an easier way. I did create it like this at first and it seemed very bulky (30+ activities), so now I have it set up so that when an item is selected, the setContentView opens the corresponding layout with the text that needs to be displayed. This works but there is a catch, whenever I hit the back button, it takes me back to my main activity class and not my expandable list class. I want the user to be able to go back and select something else from the list. Any guidance as to what I need to do would be appreciated.

I would suggest creating string resources for each item you would like to display, then creating one activity with a TextView. Then, instead of creating new intents for each activity, create an intent that goes to the new activity, and add an extra that contains the text for the TextView. For example:
Activity1:
myButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener(){
public void onClick(View v) {
Intent intent = new Intent(this, ParagraphView.class);
intent.putExtra("textData", getResources().getString(R.string.myText));
getBaseContext().startActivity(intent);
}
});
In the onCreate of the viewer, add this to get your TextView:
Intent intent = getIntent();
String textData = intent.getStringExtra("text");
Now, we need to write the text into the TextView:
TextView tv = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.myTextView);
tv.setText(textData);
All you have to to is set up your string resources and button click listeners. You may consider this easier than having lots of activities (it's definitely easier to manage entries this way) but does require a bit of setup.
Edit: Thanks to #ianhanniballake for pointing out a much better way (I don't even know what I was thinking at the time...)
Edit2: Wow, I REALLY messed up my code. (Hopefully) Fixed now

"Login" activity: ProgressDialog alternative

I have got an activity where the user can enter host name, user name and password and then click on a "Verify credentials" button. Then the credentials will be checked, which will take some time. In the meantime the user should neither be able to change the credentials nor to click on "Verify" again. So, a modal dialog like the ProgressDialog seems perfect for this.
Unfortunately, ProgressDialog has the well-know limitations regarding orientation changes etc. The guide (UI/Dialogs) tells to avoid ProgressDialog at all and use a ProgressBar in the layout instead (like in Progress & Activity). What does this mean? Shall I create another activity with just one progress bar? Or disable all input fields and put a progress bar on top of it? Sounds quite weird to me... whats your preferred solution?

Best thing which I use is:
Put a ProgressBar just beside the Login Button.
I have put a progressbar beside it(Whose visibility is set to View.GONE) in the OnCreate method.
When the user clicks on the Login/Submit button, I set the visibility of the button to View.GONE and visibility of ProgressBar to View.VISIBLE.
It looks good and the user cannot click on the button until the work is done, If an error occurs, toggle the visibility to let the user try again

Like #micro.pravi mentioned in his answer, you can implement the ProgressBar inside your layout. To keep the state after an orientation change you have to use onSaveInstanceState and onRestoreInstanceState to save and restore important values, i.e. private variables, like the private boolean isChecking
public class MyActivity extends Activity {
public boolean isProcessing;
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle stateBundle) {
super.onCreate(stateBundle);
// Set Layout
setContentView(R.layout.main);
if(stateBundle!=null) {
// read your data here from the bundle
isProcessing = stateBundle.getBoolean("isProcessing");
}
setUiState(isChecking);
}
#Override
protected void onRestoreInstanceState(Bundle stateBundle) {
// Second value of getBoolean is the default value
isProcessing = stateBundle.getBoolean("isProcessing", false);
super.onRestoreInstanceState(stateBundle);
}
#Override
protected void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle stateBundle) {
// Save the critical data
stateBundle.putString("isProcessing", isProcessing);
super.onSaveInstanceState(stateBundle);
}
#Override
protected onResume() {
setUiState(isProcessing);
}
private setUiState(boolean processing) {
textView.setEnabled(!processing);
button.setEnabled(!processing);
progressbar.setVisibility(processing?View.VISIBLE:View.GONE);
}
}
This should be used to saved any critical data on orientation change or when the App is being killed and later restored by the OS. You don't have to save your TextView data, as the defautl View elements already handle this by themselves. Also do not store Image data this way. Instead store the Uri or path to the Url and load it on restore

For temporarily solving your problem, you can continue using the Progress Dialog and put this line in your Login Activity's tag in Manifest.xml file :
android:configChanges="orientation|keyboardHidden|screenSize"
Using this line of code will not affect the Progress Dialog on orientation changes. But it is considered a wrong practice according to Android Development's Documentation.
In the long run, i recommend you to Preserve the states for orientation changes.

Android: Dynamically Change Activity Title to Text of Selected List Item

I'm new to Android development.
I created a simple master-detail app that starts with a simple, vertical scrolling list of topics.
When the user selects a topic, a details screen appears, replacing the first screen, with a list of details that pertain to the selected topic.
I want the title for the details screen to show the topic the user has selected on the first page, but haven't been able to solve the problem after working for almost a week.
All I need to know is, Can this be done? Not looking for someone to solve this for me, but maybe a hint or a link to a tutorial that shows how this can be done.
Note: I'd post a drawing of what I want to do, but I'm new here and don't have 10 reputation yet.
Thanks,
SonCoder

Not exactly sure what you want but either way..
-You have a listview. Each view (the data) in the listview should be a represented by a model. (aka a separate class containing specific information that you want to represent for each listitem.
-Write a custom list adapter (extend from base adapter).
http://www.androidhive.info/2012/02/android-custom-listview-with-image-and-text/
In the getView method of this class you load the the String field of the model that you want in the textview.
-Make sure to use the viewholder pattern in the adapter above. I noticed the example doesnt use one. This speeds up scrolling in the list because there are much fewer calls to findViewById.
-in the list activity set up a View onClick listener. This should create an intent (for launching an activity) or a fragment transaction (for fragments). Send the instance of your entire model (will get from
parent.getAdapter().getItem(position);
in the on click method) into the detail activity.
-if you want to set a textview title just get the textview and set it from the model. It will be the same filed you inflated in the getView method of the adapter.
-if you want to set the titile in the actionbar set:
this.getActionBar().setTitle(title)

This is simple. Just send extra data in the intent that starts the activity and then in the activity's onCreate read the data and then use the setTitle(myString) method from the activity.
setTitle(String title) can be called from anywhere using the activity by the way.
So, your in your listadapter, then you set a listener on your view right? A simple onClickListener on the whole "root" view is just fine.
In the listener you say something in the ways of this:
Intent intent = new Intent(myActivity, MySubActivity.class);
intent.putExtra(key, titleName);
myActivity.startActivity(intent);
Note that the activity reference should be set in the constructor of the adapter and that the "key" String is something you get from your strings.xml. Do not duplicate these in code since if you change one and forget to change the others you might get some wierd NPEs.
Continue in your MySubActivity's onCreate()
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
Intent intent = getIntent();
String key = getString(R.string.my_title_key);
String title = intent.getString(key);
setTitle(title);
}
NOTE: I'm not sure of all method names are correct and such but something like this.

How can I setText() (TextView) when the TextView is in another layout?

My app has 2 layouts (main layout) and (preference (prefs) layout).
When the MainActivity loads, I set setContentView(R.layout.main); - main layout
I need to then set text for a TextView in the preference layout, but it never gets set.
LayoutInflater factory = getLayoutInflater();
View inflate = factory.inflate(R.layout.prefs, null);
TextView eSerial = (TextView) inflate.findViewById(R.id.editTextSerial);
mSerial = "Test";
eSerial.setText(mSerial);
The way I get to the preference page is with a menu and then the page loads up with no change to TextView
I have searched and not found an answer yet.
Please help.
Thank you.

When the menu kicks off your prefs activity, you can populate the view with the values. user1853479 points out one way of doing this, which is to add the values to an intent. Assuming you want to store these prefs for future runs, you can also set any that for that specific run and save them in your local store. Another method is to create a singleton to store your settings, load it when your app starts, modify and save as needed, and access it from any of your activities.

Short answer: You can't do this.
Long answer:
If you are launching the preference page yourself, you must be creating an Intent to do so. Call putExtra() to store your text inside that intent. In your PreferenceActivity, call getIntent().getStringExtra() to get the text, then put it in your TextView.