What is the name of this balloon-like UI component? (Android/Linux) - android

This is neither a code-question nor technical issue, so I admit that it can be somewhat off-topic with StackOverflow, but I'm in really need of help because I already took lots of time.
I'm working with a help window implementation and I'd like to do this with a type of view that I've seen in some of Android button options. In some versions of Ubuntu, the view can also be seen when you point your mouse arrow within an application shortcut in the main taskbar. It looks like a balloon-type dialog box. Bellow is a screenshoot of the view:
My issue is a somewhat softheaded one: I don't know the technical name of this UI component, and so I can't search for documentations and examples.
I've already searched for several combinations of terms such as dialog-box, menu, balloon, popup-menu and so on, without success. Can someone tell me the name of this UI and, if possible, post a simple example of usage in Android/Java?
Thanks in advance!

There's no native UI with that approach but, you can use any viewgroup you prefer (depending on the content of it) and set the background of this viewgroup to be a 9 patch drawable.

That looks like a popup. It's not a standard component, but you can create one like that with PopupWindow.
See how to create popups in Android for details implementation.

There is no UI View for that: check http://greendroid.cyrilmottier.com/ There is something like QuickAction. Simple to use and free ;)

Related

How would you implement this tutorial screen in Android app?

I saw this when I first started and opened my emulator and wanted to include something like in my application.
Does anyone know how you implement this tutorial? Do you basically have a layout file with a TextView, ImageView, and a Button? And inflate it with some kind of dialog fragment? Is there a way to account for the transparency as well?
I experimented with a dialog fragment but mine looks nothing like the screenshot above. (no transparency, position at center, etc...)
I have never used it so I can not give you a code example. However it is documented in the Help Section of the developer documentation.
This library can help you too.

How to create an info overlay in Android

I am looking for a way to create a short overlay intro of an app to display to first time users. These posts gave me some understanding of how it can be done, but not entirely:
How do I create a help overlay like you see in a few Android apps and ICS?
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I do not understand how to access my elements correctly, since my root layout element is a LinearLayout that includes an Actionbar and a ViewPager instead of containing actual elements.
Are there any frameworks that does this for you?
I think that this library : ShowcaseView is your best option.
As its name implies, it allows you to recreate the Android 4.x showcase view; ie :
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The documentation of the project explains how to implement it.
Word of advice though : this kind of explanation view is viewed as bad design most of the time : if your application is well designed, you don't need to provide a tutorial to the user, it is supposed to be intuitive.
It can be totally justified in some cases of course, just be sure that :
-your users really need a tutorial.
-it is not because you are doing something opposite to the Android convetions.
Have a look at MaterialShowcaseView. It inherits from ShowcaseView and is up-to-date.

How to style the children Views from the parent View?

I am currently trying to get the look of my app right. But I am having problems figuring out how to even set up a way to change themes. For one thing, is there even a way to change styles through code? I checked the method list and I saw nothing. This leads me to my actual question; is there a way that, like CSS, in which you style the parent, and then have it trickle down but also changed depending on the View? I looked at the Android docs, and they did not show any examples of this. Hopefully someone can give me an idea as to how to accomplish this, or if its not possible, to let me know that as well. Thanks in advance.
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Custom controls in android

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some articles refer to them as custom controls others custom componnets and other custom widgets. What should I be looking up?
Most questions on this topic are simply refered this page http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/custom-components.html which is just a view class and is a bit like being handed a chinese dictionary when asked how to write chinese and told everything you need is there. Although true, I'm looking for a simple example something like an odd shapped button with one even attached to it. Surely there must be one such example?
If you really need custom view - look this document. But easier way - customize existing components, by providing specific backgrounds and providing special events.

Tab buttons similar to iPhone

I was just wondering if anyone knew of an open-source custom view or even a way to make a decent strip of buttons on Android similar to the image below
I have looked at the tab views and such Android provides and it isn't what the client is looking for in terms of aesthetics. Any help would be appreciated, thanks!
You probably should implement a custom RadioGroup to implement the UISegmentedControl you have shown in the image. see this github project which implements just that!
https://github.com/makeramen/android-segmentedradiobutton
Here is another resource i've used to implement the same thing you're after:
http://blog.bookworm.at/2010/10/segmented-controls-in-android.html

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