CS 193A
Fragments
This document is copyright (C) Marty Stepp and Stanford Computer Science.
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. All rights reserved.
Situational layouts
● Your app can use different layout in different situations:
– different device type (tablet vs phone vs watch)
– different screen size
– different orientation (portrait vs. landscape)
– different country or locale (language, etc.)
Situation-specific folders
● Your app will look for resource folder names with suffixes:
– screen density (e.g. drawable-hdpi) (link)
● xhdpi: 2.0 (twice as many pixels/dots per inch)
● hdpi: 1.5
● mdpi: 1.0 (baseline)
● ldpi: 0.75
– screen size (e.g. layout-large) (link)
● small, normal, large, xlarge
– orientation (e.g. layout-land)
● portrait (), land (landscape)
Portrait vs landscape layout
● To create a different layout in landscape mode:
– create a folder in your project called res/layout-land
– place another copy of your activity's layout XML file there
– modify it as needed to represent the differences
Problem: redundant layouts
● With situational layout you begin to encounter redundancy.
– The layout in one case (e.g. portrait or medium) is very similar to the
layout in another case (e.g. landscape or large).
– You don't want to represent the same XML or Java code multiple times
in multiple places.
● You sometimes want your code to behave situationally.
– In portrait mode, clicking a button should launch a new activity.
– In landscape mode, clicking a button should launch a new view.
Fragments (link)
● fragment: A reusable segment of Android UI
that can appear in an activity.
– can help handle different devices and screen sizes
– can reuse a common fragment across multiple activities
– first added in Android 3.0 (usable in older versions if necessary)
Creating a fragment
● In Android Studio, right-click app, click:
New → Fragment → Fragment (blank)
– un-check boxes about "Include __ methods"
– now create layout XML and Java event code as in an Activity
Using fragments in activity XML
● Activity layout XML can include fragments.
<!-- activity_name.xml -->
<LinearLayout ...>
<fragment ...
android:id="@+id/id1"
android:name="ClassName1"
tools:layout="@layout/name1" />
<fragment ...
android:id="@+id/id2"
android:name="ClassName2"
tools:layout="@layout/name2" />
</LinearLayout>
Fragment life cycle
● Fragments have a similar life cycle
and events as activities.
● Important methods:
– onAttach to glue fragment to its
surrounding activity
– onCreate when fragment is loading
– onCreateView method that must
return fragment's root UI view
– onActivityCreated method that
indicates the enclosing activity is ready
– onPause when fragment
is being left/exited
– onDetach just as fragment
is being deleted
Another fragment lifecycle view
Fragment template
public class Name extends Fragment {
@Override
public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater,
ViewGroup vg, Bundle bundle) {
// load the GUI layout from the XML
return inflater.inflate(R.layout.id, vg, false);
}
public void onActivityCreated(Bundle savedState) {
super.onActivityCreated(savedState);
// ... any other GUI initialization needed
}
// any other code (e.g. event-handling)
}
Fragment vs. activity
● Fragment code is similar to activity code, with a few changes:
– Many activity methods aren't present in the fragment, but you can call
getActivity to access the activity the fragment is inside of.
Button b = (Button) findViewById(R.id.but);
Button b = (Button) getActivity().findViewById(R.id.but);
– Sometimes also use getView to refer to the activity's layout
– Event handlers cannot be attached in the XML any more. :-(
● Must be attached in Java code instead.
– Passing information to a fragment (via Intents/Bundles) is trickier.
● The fragment must ask its enclosing activity for the information.
– Fragment initialization code must be mindful of order of execution.
● Does it depend on the surrounding activity being loaded? Etc.
● Typically move onCreate code to onActivityCreated.
Fragment onClick listener
● Activity:
<Button android:id="@+id/b1"
android:onClick="onClickB1" ... />
● Fragment:
<Button android:id="@+id/b1" ... />
// in fragment's Java file
Button b = (Button) getActivity().findViewById(r.id.b1);
b.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
@Override public void onClick(View view) {
// whatever code would have been in onClickB1
}
});
Activity that accepts parameters
public class Name extends Activity {
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.name);
// extract parameters passed to activity from intent
Intent intent = getIntent();
int name1 = intent.getIntExtra("id1", default);
String name2 = intent.getStringExtra("id2", "default");
// use parameters to set up the initial state
...
}
...
}
Fragment that accepts parameters
public class Name extends Fragment {
@Override
public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater,
ViewGroup container, Bundle savedInstanceState) {
return inflater.inflate(R.layout.name, container, false);
}
@Override
public void onActivityCreated(Bundle savedState) {
super.onActivityCreated(savedState);
// extract parameters passed to activity from intent
Intent intent = getActivity().getIntent();
int name1 = intent.getIntExtra("id1", default);
String name2 = intent.getStringExtra("id2", "default");
// use parameters to set up the initial state
...
}
Communication between fragments
● One activity might contain multiple fragments.
● The fragments may want to talk to each other.
– Use activity's getFragmentManager method.
– its findFragmentById method can
access any fragment that has an id.
Activity act = getActivity();
if (act.getResources().getConfiguration().orientation ==
Configuration.ORIENTATION_LANDSCAPE) {
// update other fragment within this same activity
FragmentClass fragment = (FragmentClass)
act.getFragmentManager().findFragmentById(R.id.id);
fragment.methodName(parameters);
}
Fragment subclasses
● DialogFragment - a fragment meant to
be shown as a dialog box that pops up
on top of the current activity.
● ListFragment - a fragment that shows
a list of items as its main content.
● PreferenceFragment - a fragment
whose main content is meant to allow
the user to change settings for the app.
