Android Inline Activity

Question

In Android, the TabHost object renders activities in a type of inline way. I'm wondering if there's any way I can do a similar type of thing, without using the tab-host. Suppose, i want to have a toolbar or sliding drawer that allows me to switch between the activities in the same way that the TabHost does this. In other words, I'd like to render an activity inline inside of another activity, sort of like an iframe for activities...

Answer 1

This may not be exactly loading separate Activities, but...

Instead of Activities, you could achieve that functionality from a user's perspective by by dynamically loading layouts inside a single Activity. That way you could have a slider and update the layout(s) on screen as needed.

Answer 2

No and even use of activities in tabs is discouraged in favor of views. You can do other searches here or on the android google groups to read why.

If you must have separate activities you should start them the proper way with Intents and let Android manage their lifecycle or do tabs with a view per tab.

Answer 3

Basically you need to play with LocalActivityManager and the ActvityGroup class:

Suppose you have your DashBoard class:

public class Dashboard extends ActivityGroup implements View.OnClickListener {
  super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    //Your view with the activity launcher buttons on the bottom for instance
   setContentView(R.layout.frame);

    @Override
    public void onClick(View v) {


        Intent intent = new Intent().setClassName(context,YourActivity.class);

        intent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);


        LocalActivityManager localActivityManager = getLocalActivityManager();


        final Window w = localActivityManager.startActivity("uniqueID", intent);
        final View wd = w != null ? w.getDecorView() : null;

             //the content of your activity goes here
        FrameLayout frameLayout = (FrameLayout) findViewById(R.id.tabcontent);
        frameLayout.removeAllViews();
        frameLayout.addView(wd);
    }

}