Switching between layouts from the same activity: Possible but recomended? - android

I want to know why do people keep recommending starting new Activities when you want to display another screen?
Let's say I want to display a screen with a label and an edit_text to ask for username, then another similar screen to ask for age, then another screen to display the data entered and ask for confirmation.
I did this:
main_layout.xml: has a button let's say mainButton, onClick="startRegistration"
name_layout.xml: edittext asking for name
age_layout.xml: edittext asking for age
confirm_layout.xml: display info + button to confirm
and in:
public class MainActivity extends Activity {
onCreate(...) {
...
setContentView(R.layout.main_layout);
}
public void startRegistration(View clickedButton) {
setContentView(R.layout.name_layout);
}
..
}
... and so on, all button handlers are public void methods in main class and each method contains setContentView() with the next layout as parameter.
I have a feeling this is bad programming style, however it works perfectly fine. Is it ok to do this? If not, is there any other easy way? Starting a new activity for such things feels really stupid to me.

Normally you group 'activities' together in an Activity. For you, registration uses multiple screens but are linked to each other. I would suggest using 1 Activity with a ViewFlipper.
Having 1 Activity for all will screw up the navigation for the user. The Back key has to be handled specially. "if back key, set this content, else set this content, etc"

If you code different layouts for the same type of screen then its not really an ideal idea. The better idea is to have the same layout and point to the same layout from the classes where the layouts are the same. In the screen where you want to have an extra/less control or different control then just have unique IDs to such controls.
Refer the controls from their IDs and you will have a single layout file. Writing different layout classes where the controls are same will pave way to code repetition and hence is not an ideal way of coding.

Related

How to structure this Fragment / RecyclerView

I know this is somewhat of a design question but I do have specific questions for it. I'm trying to understand how to handle a situation like this one:
Let's say I have a RecyclerViewFragment which loads a RecyclerView containing a bunch of Toy objects.
In one situation: Maybe this RecyclerViewFragment is part of a ViewPager on main display. There is a FloatingActionButton add-button present over this RecyclerView. You click the + button and you can add a new Toy to the list. Or you can click a Toy from the list directly and a floating menu pops up with Edit/Delete buttons, and pressing Edit lets you edit the Toy's details in a DialogFragment, or clicking Delete removes it from the RecyclerView.
In another situation: Now I am in a separate part of the app where I want to choose toys to use. So I press a button and a DialogFragment appears with a RecyclerView of Toys. I can click a Toy and it'll be added to my cart.
It seems like I should be re-using the same RecyclerView code in both situations, since they both involve a list of the same Toys. The only difference is that in one situation, I can add Toys and edit Toy details, and in the other situation, there is no Add button and clicking on a toy does something different (adding to a cart as opposed to bringing up an Edit/Delete dialog).
Is this the correct way to handle this:
Communication from Fragment to Activity: Interfaces? Have the RecyclerViewFragment, in the onAttach method, assign a listener of my design to the context. Then when a row of the RecyclerView is pressed, the callback is triggered. Now the underlying Activity can decide what to do with that press -- show the Edit/Delete dialog in one situation, add the Toy to a Cart in the other situation. Either way, the click item sends the Toy to the calling Activity so it can decide what to do with it.
Communication from Activity to Fragment: Now what about the situation with the Add button? This Add button would not be intrinsically part of the RecyclerViewFragment, so when I click Add, it would bring up the details dialog box where I can give the Toy details, and then press OK to add it. So somehow I have to transfer this new Toy to the Fragment to have it added to the RecyclerView. Would I simply do something like this:
RecyclerViewFragment recyclerViewFragment = (RecyclerViewFragment ) getSupportFragmentManager().findFragmentByTag("TOY_RECYCLERVIEW");
recyclerViewFragment.getNewToyAndRefreshList(newToy);
and then in the RecyclerViewFragment:
public void getNewToyAndRefreshList(Toy newToy) {
toyList.add(newToy);
Collections.sort(toyList); //Toy has Comparable implemented, sort by name
recyclerViewAdapter.notifyDataSetChanged();
}
Am I on the right track? Is there a different way to fix this situation?
That's certainly a design question, but IMHO there's a very specific issue on it and I believe it's a good question (reason I'm answering), but that also means other developers might have other approaches to solve the issue.
1. that is a totally fair and acceptable approach to it. You let the fragment be simple UI element and let someone else (the activity) implement the click behavior.
For this approach remember to code it only against the interface. That means, don't cast it to your activity. For example:
// do this
toyClickListener.onToyClicked(toy);
// don't do this
((MyActivity)getActivity()).onToyClicked(toy);
That way you keep the "simple UI element" be completely unaware of who is implementing the behavior.
2. IMO for this kind of scenario (specially on RecyclerView.Adapter) the best thing to do is to forget the UI and only focus on the data. And how speciafically you implement this, will vary on what is your data source.
But the base idea is that you have somewhere a data repo (DB?) and anyone using data from there, should subscribe to changes to it.
So you override RecyclerView.Adapter.registerAdapterDataObserver and unregisterAdapterDataObserver add the subscription/listener code, something like that:
#Override registerAdapterDataObserver(RecyclerView.AdapterDataObserver observer) {
super.registerAdapterDataObserver(observer);
db.subscribe(this, toyList);
}
#Override unregisterAdapterDataObserver(RecyclerView.AdapterDataObserver observer) {
db.unsubscribe(this);
super.unregisterAdapterDataObserver(observer);
}
#Override public void onDbDataUpdate(new Data comes here){
update the data, and call .notifyDataSetChanged();
}
that way once the FAB + and then dialog is clicked the new Toy gets added to the DB and the adapter gets "automatically" notified.
So if this data comes from a SQLite you can call on the cursor registerContentObserver if it's a RealmDB you'll use addChangeListener, even Android databinding libraries have a ObservableList

What is the best way to use multiple layouts with selective back button?

I want to use the Android device back/return button to switch to a previous layout in my application, but only for specific layouts. All other cases should use the buttons normal close application function. This is to save space on the screen for an obvious "go back to the screen before this" button.
So far I came up with this simple solution:
int screenid=0;
public void ButtonClickN(View v)
{
setContentView(R.layout.ScreenX);
screenid=3;
}
public void onBackPressed()
{
if(screenid==2) // screen z
{
setContentView(R.layout.ScreenY);
screenid=1;
return;
}
if(screenid==3) // screen x
{
setContentView(R.layout.ScreenZ);
screenid=2;
return;
}
finish(); // all other cases button works as normal
}
But I feel that this is not the best way to do this, as there might be something inbuilt to make it even simpler. Say, comparing layouts by name to remove the integer, or sliding the layouts from left to right...
Another way that works is to use Intent to make the new screen in another activity. It draws the new layout over the older one:
public void ButtonClickN(View v)
{
Intent i3 = new Intent(view.getContext(), ActivityX.class);
startActivityForResult(i3, 0);
}
This makes the Android back button work as before, but requires making a new class for every screen
public class ActivityX extends Activity
which onCreate calls:
setContentView(R.layout.ScreenX);
and requires additional declaration in the AndroidManifest.xml
<activity android:name=".ActivityX"></activity>
Clearly too much of a hassle in comparison to the first solution. It also generates an overlapping effect in the emulator, which I want to avoid. So far the effect doesn't appear on my Samsung Galaxy Y (GT-S5360), but who knows what it will be on other devices.
So my question, is there a better/simpler way to do selective use of the Android back button? Or switch between fullscreen layouts more efficiently?
Evidently keeping ID integer of which screen is currently in use the simplest solution.

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

How to structure my android application

I'm very new to Android development, and want to make sure that I'm structuring my application correctly. First, let me explain what is needed.
The application starts off prompting the user for an access code, depending on their response there are two resulting menu's which can appear. One menu has 5 buttons, while the other adds two extra buttons making seven. Each one of those buttons brings me to a different view where more information will be displayed.
I originally starting writing it with one activity and a different XML file for each view. However, the more I have been researching online it seems that I should have a different Activity for each individual view. But now I'm relatively confused how I can prompt the user for input before initializing any of the Activities.
If anyone has any input I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks
You will need to initialize an activity before getting user input. And I think it is common that if you go to a new view that it uses a different class and xml layout. So for each of the new views you could make a new class that extends an activity and then has an xml file related to that view.
So have these 2 files for each new view you show.
Java file:
public class Activity1 extends Activity {
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.layout1);
}
}
XML file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:id="#+id/layout1"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent" >
//add any views
</LinearLayout>
Try:
-push activity1 with layout1
-pop inputDialog
-when inputDialog is closed by clicking ok...
-push Activity2 with layout2, proceed with you input from activity1 using extras
...and so on ;)
I have been trying to break up my programs into an activity and a corresponding xml layout for each view. If you have one activity and all those layouts, you have the potential to have a monster block of code in that one activity. I find that breaking it up makes it easier to read and debug.
As for prompting the user before initializing activities, i'm not entirely clear on what you mean. You need to load an activity before anything happens, in your situation it could easily be a simple password acception activity. If you're talking about passing information between activities, you can package data in an intent, and use that to start a new activity. Then in that new activity pull the information out of the intent.

Switching Views/layouts

I have a problem that I can't seem to find the solution to.
I have an app that loads the main.xml file on startup, of course. In it are several buttons, and I want the buttons to take me to a different XML file. I just used setContentView(R.layout.newlayout.xml) method for that, and it works great.
The problem comes in after that. If I reference any of the buttons or other objects in the new layout, the app won't even finish loading before it errors out and closes on the emulator. However, if I take all references to objects out, the app runs fine.
I can navigate TO the new layouts, but their buttons can't do anything. Do I need to create a separate Java file for each layout? Or am I doing it all wrong? I'm trying to be as specific as I can. I suppose you could say I need to have different "pages" in my app as a website would.
I think what you are trying to do is best solved using multiple java files, each one defining it's own android Activity.
While it is possible to have multiple layouts/views in a single activity, this will generally make the code more complex and harder to read/debug in the future. By having each 'screen' in its own file, it will be a bit easier to manage all the different views you need to juggle.
The buttons and views only can refer to those mentioned in the current SetContentView() file..
u can test this by creating a button and initialising to an R.id... without setting the content view.. U will get a force close..
so if u change the XML file u shud initialise stuff again....
Ok, for anyone out there with the same problem and haven't figured out how to do it, as I said in my comment on ylebre, my Coworker and I have finally discovered how to do it. First off, we added
implements OnClickListener
to the class, after
extends Activity
then, we created a new java file, and at the beginning of the file it called
setContentView(R.layout.newlayout);
instead of main. Then, we made a button as follows:
Button button1 = (Button) findViewById(R.id.button01;
button1.setOnClickListener(this);
then later in the code:
public void onClick(View v) {
switch(v.getId()) {
case R.id.button01:
startActivity(new Intent(this, NEWJAVAFILE.class));
break;
}
}
And that's it! We just copied and pasted that code into NEWJAVAFILE, changed the names and such, and we were able to navigate freely back and forth. As ylebre said, all of the code for the new activity is in the NEWJAVAFILE.java. OH and don't forget to add the name of the java file to the manifest inside the tags:
<activity android:name=".NEWJAVAFILE">
</activity>
it all seems so simple now!

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