In Android, the TabHost object renders activities in a type of inline way. I'm wondering if there's any way I can do a similar type of thing, without using the tab-host. Suppose, i want to have a toolbar or sliding drawer that allows me to switch between the activities in the same way that the TabHost does this. In other words, I'd like to render an activity inline inside of another activity, sort of like an iframe for activities...
Basically you need to play with LocalActivityManager and the ActvityGroup class:
Suppose you have your DashBoard class:
public class Dashboard extends ActivityGroup implements View.OnClickListener {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
//Your view with the activity launcher buttons on the bottom for instance
setContentView(R.layout.frame);
#Override
public void onClick(View v) {
Intent intent = new Intent().setClassName(context,YourActivity.class);
intent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
LocalActivityManager localActivityManager = getLocalActivityManager();
final Window w = localActivityManager.startActivity("uniqueID", intent);
final View wd = w != null ? w.getDecorView() : null;
//the content of your activity goes here
FrameLayout frameLayout = (FrameLayout) findViewById(R.id.tabcontent);
frameLayout.removeAllViews();
frameLayout.addView(wd);
}
}
This may not be exactly loading separate Activities, but...
Instead of Activities, you could achieve that functionality from a user's perspective by by dynamically loading layouts inside a single Activity. That way you could have a slider and update the layout(s) on screen as needed.
No and even use of activities in tabs is discouraged in favor of views. You can do other searches here or on the android google groups to read why.
If you must have separate activities you should start them the proper way with Intents and let Android manage their lifecycle or do tabs with a view per tab.
Related
I need show a TextView in all Activities, but is much work to do it one by one, because I have +10 Activities.
My objective is when I click in a button, show a textview ("Importing ...") at the bottom of the application. This textview will disappear when I receive a push notification, and I owe a pop up with the response (the pop up also has to appear in any activity).
My project has a custom abstract BaseActivity and all activities extends it.
public abstract class BaseActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
}
protected void setActionBar(#IdRes int idResToolbar) {
Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(idResToolbar);
setSupportActionBar(toolbar);
updateFont(toolbar);
}
// ...
}
I think I could use for my purpose but not how to do it.
If anyone has any suggestions I will be happy to hear it.
Thanks in advance.
Use fragments for your content (instead of different activites) you then can add global views to the activity, which holds the fragments.
If you don't want to do that, you'd have to modify the layout(s) in your Base class.
I would suggest you to use a PopupWindow that contains the text view and create a separate class that initializes the PopupWindow on the basis of context given to it.
Now in all your Activities you will have the control of showing and hiding the window as you want. Make sure to make all utility methods required in the separate class to avoid coherence for example hiding and showing the window. setting text of text view of the window and etc.
You can write in onCreate() of your base activity something like
setContentView(R.layout.base_layout);
And in every other Activity at start of onCreate() method, just use super.onCreate()
And more than that to support different layouts add something like this in onCreate() (example for one of activities)
LayoutInflater inflater = getLayoutInflater();
inflater.inflate(R.layout.activity_1_layout,rootGroup)
where rootGroup is a ViewGroup in your Base Activity, in which you will add additional components for every other activity
Create a service, which creates a View which can be drawn over other apps (will require the relevant permission in the manifest)
You could use one of the open source libraries available like this or refer to this example
It's better you use fragments instead of using many activities. However, if you don't wanna do so, I suggest you create a factory which will generate a textview to all activities. Then you must add it into each activity's view.
So I found this
great example of the implementation of Swipey tabs (the tabs UI like in the Android Market).
Is it possible to set an activity as its content? Is there anything like an "Activity Container" that I can set up in the XML and put an activity in it? So basically I want to have multiple activities set as content in the ViewPager. Let me know if anyone has some good solution on this problem.
From what I understand, what you are looking for are fragments, but they are only available for Android SDK 3.0 and above.
EDIT: I was under the impression that an Activity could not be placed inside a View. Apparently I was wrong. Here is an old thread about using a LocalActivityManager to place an activity inside a container view.
In case the thread disappears, the most useful post contains this code fragment:
void createInnerActivity(ViewGroup container, Class<?> activityClass)
{
if (container.getChildCount() != 0) {
container.removeViewAt(0);
}
final Intent intent = new Intent(this, activityClass);
final Window window =
getLocalActivityManager().startActivity(activityClass.toString(),
intent);
container.addView(
window.getDecorView(),
new ViewGroup.LayoutParams(ViewGroup.LayoutParams.FILL_PARENT,
ViewGroup.LayoutParams.FILL_PARENT));
}
I have an Android application which has four tabs (I use a main TabActivity with TabHost and TabSpecs).
In one of my sub activity (activity opened in a tab), i need to open a tab not by clicking on the tab title and i don't know how to do this.
For example, i have a button in my activity and when i click on it, it opens a different tab.
For the moment, it is what i do:
Intent intent = new Intent(myActivity.this, myTabActivity.class);
intent.putExtra("ComeFrom", true);
intent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP);
startActivity(intent);
Then in the TabActivity, if i get true reading the "ComeFrom" extra i open the wished tab but the problem is that it kills all the other activies. So, if someone knows a better (cleaner) way to do that trick, please tell me...
Found an easier (I think) answer:
on the TabActivity declare a public, static and self variable and populate it on the onCreate method. F.e.:
public class TheActivity extends TabActivity {
public static TheActivity self;
...
#Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
self=this;
on any Activity running in a tab, when you want to change the one shown on your app. you can do this:
TabHost tabHost = TheActivity.self.getTabHost();
tabHost.setCurrentTab(0);
Worked ok for me, hope serves someone else!
You have to use TabHost's "setCurrentTab(...)" for that. In one of my projects, I created a static method in the main Activity (the one with the TabHost), named "swtichToTab(int tab)". In my subactivites (those inside the tabs) could then just call "MainActivity.switchToTab()" to trigger switching.
It may not be the cleanest method, I'm sure you can achieve this using broadcast intents too.
You can create a BroadcastReceiver and send a broadcast with the index of the tab as extra
You can use views instead of activities for the content of the tabs. This way, the code is simpler and doesn't use as much memory. Plus, you then can use the setCurrentTab(tabIndex) method to easily switch between views.
I have a simple tutorial here. It has a tab activity with a list and map view. When you you click on an item in the list, the activity dynamically goes to the map view (using the setCurrentTab(tabIndex) method). You can easily modify this to have a button switch views.
Currently I have a TabHost implemented with 3 tabs each containing a separate activity. My question is how do I switch between tabs from within one of the activities that is located inside the tab host. I've looked everywhere and have been unsuccessful in finding a real answer to this problem.
After a long time of battling with this problem I've been able to find a solution to switching tabs when using activity based tabs.
In the parent activity class where the tabhost is created I implemented a method like the one below:
public void switchTab(int tab){
tabHost.setCurrentTab(tab);
}
Inside of the tab that I would like to be able to switch internally to another tab I created the method below:
public void switchTabInActivity(int indexTabToSwitchTo){
MintTrack parentActivity;
parentActivity = (MintTrack) this.getParent();
parentActivity.switchTab(indexTabToSwitchTo);
}
If you would like a good example of this code, you can take a look at my MintTrack project here and here.
As a side note, please be very careful when deciding whether to use view or activity based TabHost.
Activity based tabs are great because they can be separated into there own XML file. Activities can also be organized into there own Java file instead of being cluttered into one. That being said some of the things you would think would be easy become complicated with activity based tabs. Its hard to pass information between tabs without creating overhead. Activity based tabs also use more memory/CPU time as they have the overhead of the Activity around each of them. Please consider this and the many more trade offs before diving into using an Activity based TabHost. I know now that I would personally go with a view based TabHost if I ever used them again.
I encountered the same problem. While a single activity for all tabs would be better, sometimes taking the easy way out is the rational choice.
To avoid creating a new tab activity when a tab wants to change to another tab, I put this in my AndroidManifest.xml:
<activity android:name=".MyTabsActivity"
android:label="Tabs!"
android:launchMode="singleTask">
Send an intent with the tab you want:
class OneTabContentActivity {
void switchTab() {
final Intent intent = new Intent(mContext, MyTabsActivity.class);
intent.setAction("Switch to tab 1, please");
mContext.startActivity(intent);
}
class MyTabsActivity {
#Override
protected void onNewIntent (Intent intent) {
super.onNewIntent(intent);
getTabHost().setCurrentTab(1);
}
}
This solution has drawbacks but I'm not clear over the details. Someone else might know enough to point them out.
First, I set a method to my main class, which extends TabActivity let's call it "MainActivity"
public TabHost getMyTabHost() { return tabHost; }
Then, I add my tab activity class;
MainActivity ta = (MainActivity) this.getParent();
TabHost th = ta.getMyTabHost();
th.setCurrentTab(0);
It worked for me.
Step #1: Replace the tabs-holding-activities with tabs-holding-views by using a better form of setContent() on TabSpec
Step #2: Call setCurrentTab() on your TabHost from within your single Activity
I have yet to see any benefit to having an Activity be the content of a tab rather than a simple View. Having an Activity as the content of the tab wastes CPU time and memory (and, hence, battery life) and makes things like you're trying to do much more difficult.
I had a slightly different problem and thought I'd add this for anyone else facing a similar situation. I have an activity-based tabbed application and one of the tab activities launches another activity which is not controlled by the tabHost. I needed to have a button on this activity finish() (ie: return back to the main Tab view) and switch to a different tab at the same time.
I decided to handle it with a BroadcastReceiver. In the class that sets up the TabHost, I added this class:
class ChangeTabReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
#Override
public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
Log.d(TAG, "ChangeTabReceiver: received");
TabHost tabHost = getTabHost();
tabHost.setCurrentTab(1);
}
}
..then defined the vars:
ChangeTabReceiver changeTabReceiver;
IntentFilter changeTabFilter;
..then added to onCreate():
changeTabReceiver = new ChangeTabReceiver();
changeTabFilter = new IntentFilter(myApplication.CHANGE_TAB);
registerReceiver(changeTabReceiver, changeTabFilter);
Finally in the new activity when you want to close that activity and switch the tabs, do this:
Intent intent = new Intent(myApplication.CHANGE_TAB);
this.sendBroadcast(intent);
this.finish();
Of course you could make a method to switch to various tabs by passing the tab index -- but in my case this behavior only occurs in one activity so I decided to keep it simple...
public void switchTab(int index){
MintTrack ParentActivity;
ParentActivity = (MintTrack) this.getParent();
ParentActivity.getTabHost().setCurrentTab(index);
}
I just put a public static TabHost tabHost;
in my TabActivity.
Then from any other tab I can do a MyTabActivity.tabHost.setCurrentTab(tabNumber);
Works fine for me (but I wish I'd used Fragments from the start.. I was just following the Tab tutorial in the Android documentation and working from there)
There are 4 Tabs in a TabHost, let them be A, B, C, and D. Now each one is just an index page and clicking on any of them shows a different activity.
The problem is that I need to start another activity when the user selects something from the content displayed in the tab. The other activity should also be displayed in the parent tab itself. Is it possible? Or will I have to try something else?
Try this, found this solution in android cookbook,
http://androidcookbook.com/Recipe.seam;jsessionid=5424397F3130CE7769FF47DD67742911?recipeId=1693&recipeFrom=ViewTOC
Can't you change the contentView of your tab instead of starting a new Activity ?
Maybe I'm wrong but I think also that starting an activity in a tab isn't possible because the TabView is hosted in a activity and not the opposite (Tabview don't host an activity per Tab).
I think the common consensus is that it is best not to use individual Activities as tab content due to these limitations. See these questions and answers for pointers to alternatives:
Android: Why shouldn't I use activities inside tabs?
Android - Tabs, MapView, activities within tabs
To summarize the link that Rukmal Dias provided. Here's what you do:
Change your current Activity (that's in a tab) to derive from ActivityGroup
Create a new intent for the Activity you want to switch to
Copy/Paste and call this function in your current activity where "id" is the "android:id" for the layout of the new activity you want to switch to
public void replaceContentView(String id, Intent newIntent){
View view = getLocalActivityManager().startActivity(id,newIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TOP)) .getDecorView();
this.setContentView(view);}
Here's an example of how I make the call to switch views from my current Tabbed Activity:
public void switchToNextActivity(View view)
{
Intent myIntent = new Intent(getApplicationContext(), MyNextActivity.class);
replaceContentView("next_activity", myIntent);
}
It looses the view hierarchy. When you press the back button, in my case, the app closes.