I'm new into Android programming, but making steady progress with it. My app has several activities, and I would like to add an GMail.app like menu to it.
It would be very stunning if someone could give me a hint what I should search the API docs for to create a menu like this. Thanks a lot.
If you're targeting API 11 and higher you can just use the ActionBar. If you want to provide the same UI for devices with older versions of Android as well, you can give ActionBarSherlock a try. Here's a tutorial on how to use it.
You can start off by creating a custom Menu. Read up on it here. To have your Menu look a certain way, you'll want to mess with Themes and Styles. You can find a basic tutorial on that here. Your question is somewhat broad so I can't provide specific code examples, but the links should get you on your way.
Specifically what you're looking for in this case is the ActionBar Dropdown Navigation Mode (see the ActionBar docs). Of course, this is only for API level 11 and higher since it involves the ActionBar.
Related
I'm looking to implement tips into my app, and I really like this style of selector I'm attaching here (it's a screenshot from an iOS app). Is there something equivalent to this sort of horizontal selector on the Android side? Or should I just be squashing buttons or other views together?
Thanks for the help, I have also considered using a spinner instead, but I like this sort of style of all the options shown at one time in one line.
Yes. They are called Chips.
Specifically you probably referring to a ChipGroup.
and there's a guide and some examples on how to use them here
They are rather new (might be the reason you were having trouble finding the name of what you are looking for) but they are included in the google material library so that provides support for older android versions.
I want to make a shadow in my entire activity, like the commonly used in tutorials of how to use some app, but I don't know any way to do this.
If you want more details about why I want to do this, I'll explain:
I found an old app at my works GitLab, but it was made before the oficial implementation of NavigationDrawer. So, it uses a library called "SlidingMenu" (https://github.com/jfeinstein10/SlidingMenu), but this library is very limited and I don't have any idea of how to make the activity look "disabled" while the sliding menu is open.
By the way, if someone knows how to set a maxWidth to the sliding menu please feel free to tell me because i don't.
I want to start app-development for Android. I'm not new to java but the android sdk confuses me when searching for the "best" way to create a tab layout.
My first app should be simple.. I just need about 3 pages.
What is the best way to implement a tab layout? Maybe you can also tell me what ways I could take.
There are 2 ways to make a tabbed Activity.
1- TabActivity with a very simple tutorial here :
http://www.androidhive.info/2011/08/android-tab-layout-tutorial/
2- Fragments with another simple tutorial here :
http://android.codeandmagic.org/2011/07/android-tabs-with-fragments/
As of late, using Fragments has become the norm so you might want to check that out.
Good Luck
First it depends on your target android version. If you are planning for latest versions, then Fragments are best option for tab layout.
I want to make a menu sort of similar to Yelps front page.
The left image in particular. I feel like I've seen this on multiple apps, and I also remember thinking that this was actually something built into the default android layouts, but I can't seem to find anything on it anywhere.
How would I go about making this layout? Is there something already built for you, or do I have to make using image buttons and a relative layout?
Google+ also uses something like this on their first page; a lot of apps do now. It's called a dashboard layout. You can see an overview of that here and an explanation of how to create it here.
Using button images and a relative layout is an easy way to do this. For help on that look at this tut: http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/views/hello-relativelayout.html
Please give me an idea about android User interface design.Is there any tool to design the User Interface? Or Is we need to create XML file manually ? I am really newbie in android application?
Thanks
I recommend you to install the Android sdk, eclipse and ADT(Android development tools) plugin to eclipse and see for yourself. All the information about how to do this is on here.
If you are a beginner I can also recommend you what I think to be the best android development tutorial on the web, the free best one at least, from Marakana.
I think this will tell you all you need to start...
EDIT: I had no time to give a greater answer, so I'm completing it now.
Google has made a big effort to provide a WYSIWYG interface to avoid xml but you will still need to code some stuff. Another great help to avoid xml is the Properties view on eclipse accessible by Window > Show View > Properties or if its not there look for it in the Window > Show View > Other... popup menu. The Outline view accessible through the same menus will help you select between the elements you have on your layout.
All these things combined with the eclipse auto-completion feature and some shortcuts(ctrl + space is your friend) while coding in xml will give you a lot of information about the properties available.
If you are really in the mood to start developing to the android platform the Marakana Android Bootcamp I linked above is going to teach you all the basic stuff and mainly the background you need to look for what you don't know.
Droid Draw: http://www.droiddraw.org/ is one option.
The ADK currently comes with a plugin for Eclipse that lets you do this.
Google has plans to enhance this feature: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq05KqjXTvs&feature=channel_video_title
On July 6th, version 12 of the ADT (Android Developer Tools) was released and Google has made some big changes to creating RelativeLayout with a WYSIWYG editor. You can check it out around the 26 minute mark of the video posted below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq05KqjXTvs