I am new in Android so correct me if i am wrong. When another activity is opened, the first one is destroyed. So i have to pass all variables to the new activty if i don't want to lose the data. Or, can I run another not UI thread that manages my data?
Basically I need to change layout in my app on button click. Is there any way to do it within the same activity or i have to start another activity with the new layout?
You can use one activity in your app and do what you want in fragments. Navigation is good tool to use for relating fragments to each other.
well initially you can use a single activity and in that activity you can call multiple fragments as per your need,
and for the data you can use MVVM architecture with room architecture, it saves your lots of time and code.
and go with navigation graph if you want a quick and easy implementation.
you can start all this with this demo.
Related
I am trying a make notepad app so every time a new note is opened the layout will be the same. also, the number of activity(new note) should not be defined as many possible
If the activity is always the same, you should probably create an adapter that allows you to change the texts and images of your activity without the need to create several activities.
Some background:
Coming from an iOS background, using UITabbarController is very common and straight forward. Each Tab in the tab controller will change the current view to another UIViewController, and each of these UIViewControllers can have its own NavigationController (which kind of acts as a back stack). So whenever I switch tab, I would resume to the state where I left off.
Now I want to implement the same thing in Android, but it seems like the use of ViewController is different in Android. After digging around, I read that instead of using Activity like UIViewController, I should use Activity to act more like NavigationController, and use Fragments (which is deprecated)
to act as UIViewController instead.
However my question is:
Should I be implementing multiple Activities for Bottom Navigation? When I click on each item in the Bottom Navigation should I use an Intent to change Activity? Because from my understanding, using Intent to change Activity will add the new Activity to an Activity back stack, which would prevent me from switching back to whichever Activity I want. If someone could, Please tell me what is the "right" way (if there is one) to structure Bottom Navigation. Thank you all in advance.
You can use fragments as UIs, And Use a BottomNavigationView in your activity or you can use some libraries.
Here is a library for better customization: https://github.com/ittianyu/BottomNavigationViewEx
Native Method:
https://medium.com/#hitherejoe/exploring-the-android-design-support-library-bottom-navigation-drawer-548de699e8e0
In Android you should use Viewpager, tablayout and Fragments. Just search for its tutorials. there are lots of them on internet
I'm a total beginner with Android and Eclipse and I have few questions that will help me understand the philosophy of Android:
The activity does all the work "behind the scenes". Activities are connected to a layout in the XML file. When the activity is started, if declared in setContentView method, the connected layout will be shown. Activity can be independent, without any layout, it can be invoked by another activity and will do all the work without showing any layout.
Activity is something like a php file which is invoked by my submit button in HTML, and the layout is .HTML which shows elements.
Am I right with this one?
For example, if I want to change the layout of my app, I want to show Layout2.xml when clicking button in Layout1.xml. Then I have to destroy the activity which is connected with Layout1.xml and start the activity which is connected with Layout2.xml? Is this correct? Is there any better way to do this?
How can I (by which method) destroy/stop a certain activity?
Thank you in an advance.
The best bet is to read the Android documentation regarding activites at http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Activity.html
I will answer your specific questions here though
An Activity is a window that the user can see (or a hidden window if there is no layout defined). It deals with the logic of a part of the app that the user can see and interact with. If we take the MVC model (Model View Controller), the Activity is the controller, in terms of it controls which data from the Model is shown on the View (the xml layout).
If you want to show a new window/screen/activity you do not need to destroy the current one. You can open a new activity whilst keeping the old one in the background (in the back stack). With the use of fragments, you can have multiple fragments in an activity so rather than changing activities, you can change fragments in a single activity. For more information about fragments take a look at http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/Fragment.html.
This point relies heavily on the activity lifecycle. When an activity is destroyed, it means it is finishing and this can be done by the user pressing the back button whilst on the activity, the activity calling finish() on itself or by the Android operating system destroying the activity because memory is required elsewhere (this can happen when the app is in the background).
When we say an activity is stopped, it means that the activity is no longer visible to the user. This can be the case where the activity is in the back stack (another activity is in front of it) or if the app has been put into the background.
This is a brief answer to your questions but I highly recommend you read the Android documentation to gain better knowledge.
I vaguely understand what fragments are used for. However, I don't understand why ADT seems to suggest that we should ALWAYS use them. I am aware that I can simply delete the fragment layout, as well as the code in Activity for the fragment. But is it ACTUALLY recommended to use fragments all the time? What are the benefits of not deleting it?
Is there even a point of an Activity having a single fragment? What is the difference with it having no fragments at all?
Additionally, how do you know whether to create multiple fragments in one Activity, multiple Activities with a single or zero fragments or a combination of Activities and fragments?
For example, if you have a Terms and Conditions button in your Activity, and you want it to open a screen containing a document listing the terms and conditions, should I be starting a new Activity for that? Or should I just move a fragment containing this content to the front?
Using Fragments is how modern apps are developed today.
Some of the benefits are a better performance when switching content (lets say 2 fragments)
because you are not leaving the current Activity.
Also, apps with swipe tabs (for example) are built with an Activity as a container and Fragments as the content itself.
Other benefit is that you can do much more with one activity, distributing work between the fragments. Each Fragment have its own Layout and therefore its own components, so maintaining the code and keeping organized is easier.
Eclipse does this way as suggesting a start point. You can totally ignore this and start from scratch. And that's all.
I suggest you to keep the Fragment to start getting used to it. Even if there is just one.
And, if later you need to work more with that Activity, it will be easier to add new features by creating a new Fragment, without modifying your previous code.
Good luck.
I've a tabBar with 4 tabs, the Main tab is the first one, and when I click the second one I want do display another activity above the main activity in the half of the screen, reducing the opacity of the main. I'm doing this with a Dialog but it's not the result I want. What are the best way to do this?
example image
Look at Fragments, this seems like the perfect time to use them.
There are only 3 options to achieve what you want.
Second activity can be dialog (You already said you do it but you don't like).
Using fragments. (recommended)
Using layouts by playing with visibility, (not recommended in your case)
A Fragment represents a behavior or a portion of user interface in an Activity. You can combine multiple fragments in a single activity to build a multi-pane UI and reuse a fragment in multiple activities