My application has a logical Activity hierarchy, as follows:
I'm trying to navigate across Activities while checking if they're running. For instance:
Main Menu > Activity A1 > Activity A2.
Now if I go back to Main Menu, is there a way to check if Activity A2 is already running, and if so, jump directly to that Activity?
I think setting android:launchMode="singleTask" to Activity A1 might do the trick, and read about the android:allowTaskReparenting attribute. But i'm unsure exactly what to use to achieve what I want.
It would be easier to use one host Activity (as a navigation controller ) and many Fragments. Current Fragment will callback to the Activity, so it will make decision how to navigate on your graph.
If you really want to stick to the graph with many Activities, default behaviour - all activities in the same process will be alive. Android OS can only clean/kill process, not Activities (documentation a bit vague about it). You can use Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NO_HISTORY for middle activities, so only root one will be on the stack.
There is a way to investigate back stack with ActivityManager, but it's deprecated.
Related
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.
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'm implementing a fragment hierarchy similar to the one described in Fragments (Android Developers).
In adition in tablets in portrait the app should behave as in the second case. My problem is to handle the transaction from an orientation to other.
The first idea I considered was:
From landscape-to-portrait:When the activity A goes to portrait: Remove the fragment B to the view. Start activity B for result passing the propper values for recover the original fragment B state
From portrait-to-landscape: When the activity B goes to portrait. finishes (with the fragment 2 status in the result). The activity A with the result restores and adds the fragment B to its layout.
But this solution is pretty complex and I think it provably is not a nice idea. The alternative solution I have considered is only to have an Activity. That activity layout is:
<FrameLayout>
<LinearLayout>
<Fragment A>
<Fragment B>
<Slot>
For small devices:
The app removes the fragment B and when a item is selected add to the backstack the fragment to the "Slot"
For tablets:
Using fragmentTransactions the fragment B is moved from Its position to the "Slot" using the backstack to behave properly to the orientation changes
I think the second option sounds better but, is the correct way of doing this?
Thanks
If you want my advice, I'd say it depends on way too much factors. I think you should stick with what you find manageable enough. It depends too on how complex your app's screen flow is.
Keeping it in one activity is, for me, a good idea if you don't have that much fragments to manage. An advantage of this approach is that you don't need to fiddle around with the life cycle of two different activities.
Anyway, finding the implementation complex is in a way an indicator that what you're planning won't be manageable for you in the future.
Hope that helps!
I dont get why would you want to do it in such a complicated way. Have one activity on tablets, two activites on phone. Have first activity implement a listener that would fire if list fragment's item was clicked. The activity knows if it is inside single or dual pane mode, so inside that onItemSelected callback method, have it either start a new activity in case of a single pane mode, or replace a fragment, in case of a tablet.
You can also see this, using Master/Detail template when creating a new project.
Hi i am working with android , and i have a problem with the activity stack. As i know, when someone uses the back button, reload the back activity. But in the case i have many layouts shown from one activity, how can i go back to them.
Here is the deal, i am using a listview filled with categories, and when i press an item, i reuse the activity and the layout, to show its subcategories. So what i need is to came back no to the back activity, not to the back layout, but to the back "state".
Well, the idea is simple, first i show all the categories with no parent, then when i pressed an item, i show its subcategories.
The easiest way is creating two Activities - for categories and for subcategories. If you try to implement all the logic in a single Activity you won't earn nothing and just end up totally confused. Using Activities simplifies things a lot just because it handles problems such as yours. Hope this helps.
Check out Fragments, they are the stepping stone between a view and an activity. An activity can have multiple fragments and will manage their back stack (if you tell it to).
http://developer.android.com/guide/components/fragments.html
You'll have to use the support library to used them on pre honeycomb devices.