Advanced Android Development

Fragments

Lesson 1

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 1
national License
 1.1 Fragments
A reusable UI component with its own lifecycle

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 2
national License
Contents

● Understanding the Fragment class

● Creating a Fragment
● Using a layout for a Fragment
● Adding a Fragment to an Activity

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 3
national License
Understanding
the Fragment
class

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 4
national License
Fragment class

● Contains a portion of the UI and its behavior

● Has its own lifecycle states (like an Activity)
● Reusable—share across multiple activities
○ Each Fragment instance exclusively tied to host Activity
○ Fragment code defines layout and behavior

● Represents sections of a UI for different layouts

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 5
national License
Example: Pickers use DialogFragment

Date and time pickers:

Extend DialogFragment
(Fragment subclass)

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 6
national License
DialogFragment hosted by Activity
1 2
1. Activity before adding
date picker fragment
2. Date picker fragment
appears on top of
Activity

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 7
national License
Add a Fragment to an Activity

● Static part of UI (in Activity layout):

on screen during entire Activity lifecycle
● Dynamic part of UI:
added and removed while Activity is running

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 8
national License
Benefits of using fragments

● Reuse a Fragment in more than one Activity

● Add or remove dynamically as needed
● Integrate a mini-UI within an Activity
● Retain data instances after a configuration change
● Represent sections of a layout for different screen sizes

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 9
national License
Steps to using a fragment

1. Create a subclass of Fragment

2. Create a layout for the Fragment
3. Add Fragment to a host Activity
○ Statically in layout
○ Dynamically using fragment transactions

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 10
national License
Creating a
Fragment

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 11
national License
Add new Fragment in Android Studio

● Expand app > java in project and select package name

● Choose File > New > Fragment > Fragment (Blank)
● Check the Create layout XML option for layout
● Other options:
○ Include fragment factory methods to include a newInstance()
method to instantiate the Fragment
○ Include interface callbacks to define an interface with callbacks
This work is licensed under a
Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 12
national License
New Fragment

public class SimpleFragment extends Fragment {

public SimpleFragment() {
// Required empty public constructor
}
...
}
This work is licensed under a
Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 13
national License
Extend the Fragment class

● Extend Fragment class

○ public class SimpleFragment extends Fragment
● Extend specific Fragment subclass:
○ DialogFragment: Floating dialog (examples: date and time pickers)
○ ListFragment: List of items managed by adapter
○ PreferenceFragment: Hierarchy of Preference objects (useful for
Settings)

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 14
national License
Using a layout
for a Fragment

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 15
national License
Create a layout for a Fragment

● Create layout XML option adds XML layout

● Fragment callback onCreateView() creates View
○ Override this to inflate the Fragment layout
○ Return View: root of Fragment layout

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 16
national License
Inflate the layout for the Fragment (1)
@Override
public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater,
ViewGroup container, Bundle savedInstanceState) {
// Inflate the fragment layout and return it as root view.
return inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_simple,
container, false);
}

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 17
national License
Inflate the layout for the Fragment (2)
● Fragment layout is inserted into container ViewGroup in
Activity layout
● LayoutInflater inflates layout and returns View layout
root to Activity
● Bundle savedInstanceState saves previous Fragment
instance

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 18
national License
Inflate the layout for the Fragment (3)
return inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_simple, container, false);

● Resource ID of layout (R.layout.fragment_simple)

● ViewGroup to be parent of inflated layout (container)
● Boolean: Whether layout should be attached to parent
○ Should be false
○ If adding Fragment in code, don't pass true (creates a redundant
ViewGroup)

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 19
national License
 Adding a
Fragment to an
Activity

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 20
national License
Add a Fragment to an Activity

● Add statically in Activity layout, visible for entire

Activity lifecycle
● Add (or remove) dynamically as needed during Activity
lifecycle using Fragment transactions

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 21
national License
Add a Fragment statically

1. Declare Fragment inside Activity layout

(activity_main.xml) using <fragment> tag
2. Specify layout properties for the Fragment as if it were a
View

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 22
national License
Static Fragment example

Adding SimpleFragment to Activity layout:

<fragment android:name="com.example.appname.SimpleFragment"
android:id="@+id/simple_fragment"
android:layout_weight="2"
android:layout_width="0dp"
android:layout_height="match_parent" />

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 23
national License
Add a Fragment dynamically

1. Specify ViewGroup for Fragment in layout

2. Instantiate the Fragment in Activity
3. Instantiate FragmentManager
○ Use getSupportFragmentManager() for compatibility
4. Use Fragment transactions

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 24
national License
Specify a ViewGroup for the Fragment

Specify ViewGroup to place Fragment (such as FrameLayout):

<FrameLayout
android:id="@+id/fragment_container"
android:name="SimpleFragment"
tools:layout="@layout/fragment_simple"
... />
This work is licensed under a
Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 25
national License
Instantiate the Fragment

1. Create newInstance() factory method in Fragment:

public static SimpleFragment newInstance() {
return new SimpleFragment();
}

2. In Activity, instantiate Fragment by calling

newInstance():
SimpleFragment fragment = SimpleFragment.newInstance();

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 26
national License
 Instantiate FragmentManager

In Activity, get instance of FragmentManager with

getSupportFragmentManager():
FragmentManager fragmentManager = getSupportFragmentManager();

Use the Support Library version—getSupportFragmentManager() rather than

getFragmentManager()—for compatibility with earlier Android versions

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 27
national License
Use Fragment transactions

Fragment operations are wrapped into a transaction:

● Start transaction with beginTransaction()
● Do all Fragment operations (add, remove, etc.)
● End transaction with commit()

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 28
national License
Fragment transaction operations

● Add a Fragment using add()

● Remove a Fragment using remove()
● Replace a Fragment with another using replace()
● Hide and show a Fragment using hide() and show()
● Add Fragment transaction to back stack using
addToBackStack(null)
This work is licensed under a
Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 29
national License
Fragment transaction example (1)

FragmentTransaction fragmentTransaction =
fragmentManager.beginTransaction();
fragmentTransaction
.add(R.id.fragment_container, fragment)
.addToBackStack(null)
.commit();

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 30
national License
Fragment transaction example (2)

In the code on the previous slide:

● add() arguments:
○ The ViewGroup (fragment_container)
○ The fragment to add
● addToBackStack(null):
○ Add transaction to back stack of Fragment transactions
○ Back stack managed by the Activity
○ User can press Back button to return to previous Fragment state
This work is licensed under a
Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 31
national License
Fragment transaction example (3)

Removing a Fragment:
SimpleFragment fragment = (SimpleFragment) fragmentManager
.findFragmentById(R.id.fragment_container);
if (fragment != null) {
FragmentTransaction fragmentTransaction =
fragmentManager.beginTransaction();
fragmentTransaction.remove(fragment).commit();
}

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 32
national License
What's next?

● Concept chapter: 1.1 Fragments

● Practical: 1.1 Creating a Fragment with a UI

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 33
national License
END

This work is licensed under a

Advanced Android Development Fragments Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter 34
national License