Develop Reference

How to build UINavigationController-like behaviour in Android?

I'm aware the View structure for Android is completely different (ie. Activities instead of View Controllers) but I need to create a Navigation Bar that persists between views.
Is the best way really to have just one single Activity and then a lot of Fragments?
If so, has this implementation already been done somewhere else that I can use? It seems like something that would come up a lot as I've seen numerous Android apps do this.

I made a Framework (github) to provide a hierarchical navigation pattern, with animations to provide sense of navigation, rather than launching new Activities every time.
Here's how to use it:
Add the framework to your project as a Module
Add a new Java class in your project ("File - New - Java Class").
Note: If you are editing the Activity.java file that provides you the template, delete all its implementations and leave it empty.
Make it extend NavigationActivity
Implement all the NavigationActivity abstract methods
(in Android Studio if you click Alt + insert and select implement - methods all the function definitions are automatically generated).
public class NavigationTest extends NavigationActivity{
#Override
public Fragment firstFragment() {
//return the first fragment that will be shown
}
#Override
public Boolean showBackButtonInFirstFragment() {
//show back button already in the first Fragment
//set to True if this activity is called by another Activity
//the back button will then pop back to the previous Activity
}
#Override
public Boolean showMasterDetailLayoutInTablets() {
//set to false if you don't want a master-detail layout in tablets
}
}
Presenting a new Fragment
You can present a new fragment (with a nice animation) by calling the pushFragment method from NavigationActivity.
public void pushFragment(Fragment newFragment, animationType animation, boolean showAsDetailFragmentIfPossible)
newFragment (Fragment): New Fragment that will be presented
animation (animationType): Animation type enum: RIGHT_TO_LEFT, BOTTOM_TO_TOP, FLIP
showAsDetailFragmentIfPossible (boolean): If set as True, the user is in a Tablet, and you are using a master-detail layout, the Fragment will be shown in the detail Fragment (the panel in the right)!
Since you can access the activity from any Fragment with the getActivity() method, you can show a new Fragment from the currently displaying Fragment.
For example you can put this code within a button click listener:
NextFragment f = new NextFragment();
NavigationActivity nav =((NavigationActivity)getActivity());
nav.pushFragment(f,NavigationActivity.animationType.RIGHT_TO_LEFT,false);
You don't have to worry about implementing the back button behaviour. This is handled automatically by the NavigationActivity class.

Where to place application logic in new Activity code generated by ADT 22.6.2

In the latest versions of eclipse (ADT v22.6.2) the create android application now generates an activity_main.xml and a fragment_main.xml. It generates only a single activity class
but this now has an embedded inner static fragment class that is created by the activity in its onCreate method
#Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
if (savedInstanceState == null) {
getSupportFragmentManager().beginTransaction()
.add(R.id.container, new PlaceholderFragment()).commit();
}
....
public static class PlaceholderFragment extends Fragment
My confusion is how to port old code/examples where there was only 1 activity and the main application
logic is usually put in the Activity onCreate method i.e. stuff like findViewById. Listeners
etc
The way I have approached it is that I put all my user created views as members of the static PlaceHolderFragment class. Then I call this in the fragment onCreateView. I still have some logic in the activity and it stores a pointer to the fragment. It updates the views members by calling getters on the fragment. Is this correct or should all logic be moved to the fragment now ?
All the tutorials/examples use the old approach where logic is placed in the activity
so there is no reference documentation for how to use the new files that Eclipse generates for an Android application. Any help appreciated ?

Don't worry about the files that Eclipse generate automatically: You can do whatever that you want!!!
Fragment is a element between an Activity and a container.That's mean that you can put the logic of your code inside of one fragment with not problems.
In theory, fragments are used when you want to manage screens using different modules, containers. It's a fragment, a module, part of one screen (but also can be used in a full screen looking as an activity and with the same behaviour than one activity.) For example, imagine that you have for mobile phone screens, one list of news in one screen, and when you click, your app go to the next screen for show the content of the news, right? Ok, so you can use for these 2 screens: 2 activities for each one or one parent activity with 2 fragments...whatever that you want...
Imagine the same case, for a tablet version of your app, now the left part of the screen you should show the list of news and in the right part of the screen, the contain of each news clicked, right? In that case, would be completly necessary to use one activity parent with two fragments...in that case, we could reuse almost the same case for the mobile phones or tablet.
And now, focus in your question: if you don't want complicate the life (not too much, because work with fragment is easy too) I will recomend you to use only activities for your app.
But, like your question, you want to port, there isn't any problem. Now imagine that your activity is going to be only the class where you are going to manage the fragments. The logic for each screen has to be in each fragment. Use the activity only for replace fragments, or share information between fragments, etc. The activity will be like the orchestra director.
From each fragment, you can access to methods or public variables of your activity using ((NameOfActivity)getActivity()).
Is it clear for you?
One more stuff, in fragment, normally the method that we used for initialize stuffs is onCreateView (and not onCreate like activities).

Where to put the Fragment functional code?

Just a general question about working with Fragments and Activitys for android development: where does the business end of the functional code go for Fragments loaded into an Activity dynamically? (i.e. a fragment's OnClickListeners, OnCheckedChangedListeners, button logic methods...)
Do they go in the Fragment class, or the Activity class?

All the GUI logic for views attached to a fragment should be contained inside the fragment itself.
Thus a fragment should be as self contained as possible.
You can, though, if necessary do callbacks to your activity based on fragment GUI interaction. This can easily be done like this inside the fragment:
#Override
public void onAttach(Activity activity) {
if (!(activity instanceof SherlockFragmentActivity)) {
throw new IllegalStateException(getClass().getSimpleName()
+ " must be attached to a SherlockFragmentActivity.");
}
mActivity = (SherlockFragmentActivity) activity;
super.onAttach(activity);
}
In this specific case the reason for gaining a reference to SherlockFragmentActivity is to gain access to the support menu inflater mActivity.getSupportMenuInflater(), hence the construction can of course also serve to gain information from the underlying activity.

This probably depends on how much the Fragment's functionalities have in common, and how many, let's say Buttons, have to be handled.
I personally (and it's probably most common practice) handle onClick(...) events separately for each Fragment, meaning that I let each Fragment implement it's own OnClickListener.
Furthermore, when handling everything through the Activity, probably not all the components that react to click-events are in memory at all times and can be reached via findViewById(...), depending on which Fragment is currently displayed and how your user-interface is built up in general.

they always in fragment class because fragment is one type of component in android which we can reuse it. if we put onclick and oncheckchanged in activity then what meaning of reusing that component??
for more information about please go through following step:
Link 1 for basic level of information about fragment and how to handle them
Link 2 for dealing with multi pane fragment
Standard site for fragment

It depends:
If fragment can handle logic which is self sufficient(complete) then that code can be handled by fragment. e.g. on click call phone number.
If fragment have UI whose action is activity specific, then you want to add listener in activity.
e.g. master detail view like email client, on tablet user click on title fragment1 which have list of email titles, then handler on click in activity can show detail fragment2 in activity.
In all you want to keep fragment reusable.

Use Activity or Fragment in Android Application

I am new in android. I often use Activity to change from one screen to another screen with other function. Example from Home Page to Popular page. After that, i know about fragment but i never use it before. So, if i have a application with multi tab on a screen, not use TabHost here. Function of every tab very diffrent, ex : tab Home, tab Popular, tab News, tab Profile ... like Instagram App. I must use that
Activity to change Screen to another Screen, it means: i have Home Activity, Popular Activity, ... and change Activity when change Sreen. Each Activity have each layout.
Use fragment within one Activity. We have multi fragment, example HomeFragment, Popular Fragment... chang replace Fragment when change Screen.
What way is better ?
I want to ask when use only phone screen. ( small size screen, not for tablet).

It's important to think of Android devices as more of a spectrum, than clear "phone" vs. "tablet" buckets. There are many instances where you might want to show more information on screen on medium and large screens. Sometimes, this translates to showing two "Activities" at once.
Using Fragments requires little overhead, but adds measurable flexibility, especially when considered early in the development process. If you use Fragments properly, adapting to larger screens is extremely simple. However, there are a few "gotchas" that may make Fragments appear to be more daunting that they actually are:
Fragment classes must always be declared public (if it's a nested class, it must be static).
In the parent Activity (or FragmentActivity), only add the root Fragment if savedInstanceState == null. If you are managing the state of your Fragment properly, everything is handled for you (scroll position, EditText values, etc).
The parent Activity must call through to onSavedInstanceState in order for the Fragment to properly restore it's state.
setRetainInstance(true) should only be used for "headless" Fragments. This is when you use a Fragment that has no UI, and isn't added to the back stack, which is typically used to do life-cycle dependent work.
Fragments declared in XML cannot be used in a FragmentTransaction (and vice-versa).
Think of a Fragment as a modular view, that provides hooks (callbacks) to it's Activity when something important happens. The Activity decides, based on the available space, whether to launch a new Activity, or show a new Fragment.

You can use either way. If you decide to use the Activity solution, create a base activity class that contains all the Tab functionality. You don't want to implement that in every Activity over and over again.
public class BaseActivity extends Activity {
#Override
public void onCreate(...) {
// Init tabs
}
// Methods for tab handling
}
Every Activity (Popular, Profile, Home, ...) extends BaseActivity
public class PopularActivity extends BaseActivity {
#Override
public void onCreate(...) {
super.onCreate(...);
// Init only the popular activity elements here
}
}
This way you implement the tab functionality only once and get it in every activity.

Fragments - Do you have to use an Activity Wrapper around a fragment which comprises the whole Activity?

Consider the sample app from developers.android.com
This describes using Fragments like so:
On a Phone you can use Fragment 1 on Activity A and fragment 2 on Activity B.
On a tablet you have more real estate so you use Fragment 1 and Fragment 2 on Activity A.
Great! ... But... On the first example (the one with a phone) you create an Activity with an xml file containing a single <fragment> and that's all, in the activity you only call setContentView() on that xml? That seems like a lot of redundant code (Activity, XML & Fragment to display a Fragment): Can you set a Fragment as an Activity or is a Wrapper with XML always required?

Ah, found it here
public class MainMenuHolder extends FragmentActivity {
#Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
{
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
// If not already added to the Fragment manager add it. If you don't do this a new Fragment will be added every time this method is called (Such as on orientation change)
if(savedInstanceState == null)
getSupportFragmentManager().beginTransaction().add(android.R.id.content, new MainMenuFragment()).commit();
}
}
FragmentActivity allow's you to set the Fragment as the content of android.R.id.content which I assume is the android internal ID of the trunk view.
With this method you still end up with an mostly redundant activity (If all you want is the Fragment acting as the Activity). But still, half as much fluff as having an activity and an XML file acting as a container.
Any other answers would be appreciated!

The online example doesn't fill in all the blanks. I'll try to answer your questions directly:
"On the first example (the one with a phone) should you create an Activity with an xml file containing a single and an activity which only calls setContentView() on that xml and that's all?"
You've started in the right place. But there's more to it than that. There's always more than one way to solve a problem in Android but a recommended way of generating the effect of having a dynamic number of fragments based on avail. real-estate is:
Create layout XML files in /layout for the primary (default) targeted orientation/device/form-factor/SDK
Create layout XML files for the smallest-width baseline for other targeted devices. You may also want to target other orientations, SDKs, etc.
Each layout XML file will have it's own set of defined fragments
In the Activity, check to see which fragments are present.
Clearly an analogous strategy can be adopted for programmatic layouts.
In your example in the original question (from Google's docs) you could have:
layout/main.xml :: this layout would only have Fragment 1
layout-sw600dp/main.xml :: this layout would have Fragments 1, 2
Then in MainActivity.java you would check for the existence of each fragment. To do that you could use FragmentManager#findFragmentById() to have a check like: if findFragmentById() returns null for Fragment-2 then MainActivity knows the device has loaded layout/main.xml and only supports one fragment.
Stepping 'back' from the example somewhat reveals that: prior to using Fragments you might have called Activity B from Activity A with startAcitityForResult(int). In the Fragment paradigm you probably only need to have a result from Fragment 2 cause something to happen in Fragment 1, so it's reasonable to have MainActivity be the gatekeeper for that. As you expand on the example you may see that in other apps, MainActivity may need to call other activities - for whatever reason. Perhaps you're targeting a large tablet with enough real estate for 3 fragments but on a handset that needs to be 3 activites. Things can get interesting but the Fragment API is fairly powerful.
"Can you set a Fragment as an Activity or is a Wrapper always required when using fragments?"
A Fragment is not an Activity. Indeed Fragments are loaded by Activities, so yes one might say a wrapper is always required. You're touching on aother subtle aspect of Fragments. Whereas Activities behave like MVC Controllers, Fragments could be called "mini-controllers" due to their lifecycle which both resembles and executes alongside an Activity. Again, the Fragment's lifecycle is contained inside ("wrapped by") the lifecycle of the Activity managing the Fragment. I recommend becoming familiar with the Fragment lifecycle documented at http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/fundamentals/fragments.html#Lifecycle.

More generically you could create a fragment container class:
public class SingleFragmentActivity extends Activity {
public static final String FRAGMENT_NAME = "fragmentName";
public static final String FRAGMENT_ARGUMENTS = "fragmentArguments";
#Override
protected void onCreate(#Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
String fragmentName = getIntent().getStringExtra(FRAGMENT_NAME);
Fragment fragment = Fragment.instantiate(this, fragmentName);
Bundle fragmentArguments = getIntent().getBundleExtra(FRAGMENT_ARGUMENTS);
fragment.setArguments(fragmentArguments);
getSupportFragmentManager().beginTransaction().replace(android.R.id.content,fragment, "tag").commit();
}
}
now you use this class to instantiate any fragment as a standalone activity:
public void showFragmentAsActivity() {
Intent intent = new Intent(this, SingleFragmentActivity.class);
intent.putExtra(SingleFragmentActivity.FRAGMENT_NAME, MyFragment.class.getName());
intent.putExtra(SingleFragmentActivity.FRAGMENT_ARGUMENTS,MyFragment.getArgumentsBundle("a string argument"));
startActivity(intent);
}