Existing patches for android tabwidget to allow tabs on left-hand side?

Question

My employer is having me work on an android application with very specific UI requirements. Specifically, we need an interface that looks exactly like a TabWidget interface. However, having the tabs on the left hand side is an absolute must. We aren't going to be deploying this application to any android phones, its for an in house device, and as such don't have any problem violating any design considerations that the android platform might have.

We already have a working prototype that hacks together the functionality we need using a combination of focus listeners and list views. It isn't pretty, and we aren't very confident in it just yet, but it works for the time being.

What we'd really like is to throw all of our prototype UI code away in exchange for using the built in TabWidget. However, since TabWidget is hardcoded to only work with the tabs on top, this isn't really an option.

So, we are hoping that someone out there has a patch, or set of patches, or perhaps a custom class, that handles the TabWidget functionality with the tabs on the side instead?

The relevant code for the TabWidget is here: http://www.google.com/codesearch/p?hl=en#uX1GffpyOZk/core/java/android/widget/TabWidget.java&q=android%20package:git://android.git.kernel.org%20lang:java%20tabwidget&sa=N&cd=1&ct=rc

and the specific function that is hardcoded for being tabs on top is

private void initTabWidget() {
    setOrientation(LinearLayout.HORIZONTAL);
    mGroupFlags |= FLAG_USE_CHILD_DRAWING_ORDER;

    final Context context = mContext;
    final Resources resources = context.getResources();

    if (context.getApplicationInfo().targetSdkVersion <= Build.VERSION_CODES.DONUT) {
        // Donut apps get old color scheme
        if (mLeftStrip == null) {
            mLeftStrip = resources.getDrawable(
                    com.android.internal.R.drawable.tab_bottom_left_v4);
        }
        if (mRightStrip == null) {
            mRightStrip = resources.getDrawable(
                    com.android.internal.R.drawable.tab_bottom_right_v4);
        }
    } else {
        // Use modern color scheme for Eclair and beyond
        if (mLeftStrip == null) {
            mLeftStrip = resources.getDrawable(
                    com.android.internal.R.drawable.tab_bottom_left);
        }
        if (mRightStrip == null) {
            mRightStrip = resources.getDrawable(
                    com.android.internal.R.drawable.tab_bottom_right);
        }
    }

    // Deal with focus, as we don't want the focus to go by default
    // to a tab other than the current tab
    setFocusable(true);
    setOnFocusChangeListener(this);
}

If anyone has any information, I'd be much obliged.

Answer 1

I've had this issue with tabs on the bottom. I ended up just copying all the tab background drawables and making buttons with stateful drawables and textcolor that looked like tabs which controlled a ViewFlipper in the main UI pane to switch between views.