Introduction to Mobile Computing

with Android
Prof. Manish Kumar Joshi, Assistant Professor
IT & Computer Science
 CHAPTER-5
Master Advanced Android Programming
TabHost
In Android, TabHost is a Container
for tabbed window view. This
object holds two children one is
set of tab labels that the user
clicks to select a specific tab and
other is a FrameLayout object that
displays the content of that page.
TabHost
Whenever we need to enter or display a lot of information in one activity. A
simple and effective method is to use tabs in your interface form which is
done using TabHost in Android.
A TabHost holds two children’s from which one is use to set the labels that
the users clicks to select tab other is a FrameLayout that is used to display
the content of that page. It means when you select any label (or you can
say change the tab) the FrameLayout is used to display the content for
that particular tab.
TabHost.TabSpec
In Android, A tab has a tab indicator, content, and a tag that is used to
keep track of it. This builder helps us to choose among these options. For
the tab indicator our choices are set a label or set a label and an icon both
together. For the tab content our choices are the id of View, a
TabHost.TabContentFactory that creates the view content and an Intent
that launches an Activity.
Important Methods of TabSpec
1. setIndicator(CharSequence label)
2. setIndicator(CharSequence label,Drawable icon)
3. setContent(Intent intent)
Important Methods of TabHost
1. addTab(TabSpec tabSpec)
2. clearAllTabs()
3. setCurrentTab(int index)
4. setOnTabChangedListener(OnTabChangeListenerl)
Menu
In android, Menu is an important
part of UI component which is
used to provide some common
functionality around the
application. With the help of menu
user can experience smooth and
consistent experience throughout
the application.
Menu
In order to use menu, we should define it in separate XML file and use
that file in our application based on our requirements. Also, we can use
menu APIs to represent user actions and other options in our android
application activities.
Types of Menu
• Android Options Menu
• Android Context Menu
• Android Popup Menu
Types of Menu
Android Options Menu – Android Options Menu is a primary collection of
menu items in an android application and useful for actions that have a
global impact on the searching application.
Android Context Menu – Android Context Menu is a floating menu only
appears when user click for a long time on an element and useful for
elements that effect the selected content or context frame.
Android Popup Menu – Android Popup Menu displays a list of items in a
vertical list which presents to the view that invoked the menu and useful to
provide an overflow of actions that related to specific content.
How to Define Menu in XML File?
Android Studio provides a standard XML format for type of menus to
define menu items. We can simply define the menu and all its items in
XML menu resource instead of building the menu in the code and also
load menu resource as menu object in the activity or fragment used in our
android application.
Elements in Menu
• <menu> It is the root element which helps in defining Menu in XML file
and it also holds multiple elements.
• <item> It is used to create a single item in menu. It also contains nested
<menu> element in order to create a submenu.
• <group> It is an optional and invisible for <item> elements to categorize
the menu items so they can share properties like active state, visibility.
Elements in Menu
• <menu> It is the root element which helps in defining Menu in XML file
and it also holds multiple elements.
• <item> It is used to create a single item in menu. It also contains nested
<menu> element in order to create a submenu.
• <group> It is an optional and invisible for <item> elements to categorize
the menu items so they can share properties like active state, visibility.
SharedPreferences
One of the most Interesting Data Storage option Android provides its users
is Shared Preferences. Shared Preferences is the way in which one can
store and retrieve small amounts of primitive data as key/value pairs to a
file on the device storage such as String, int, float, Boolean that make up
your preferences in an XML file inside the app on the device storage.
SharedPreferences
Shared Preferences can be thought of as a dictionary or a key/value pair.
For example, you might have a key being “username” and for the value,
you might store the user’s username. And then you could retrieve that by
its key (here username). You can have simple shared preferences API that
you can use to store preferences and pull them back as and when
needed. Shared Preferences class provides APIs for reading, writing and
managing this data.
SharedPreferences
Shared Preferences is suitable in different situations. For example, when
the user’s settings need to be saved or to store data that can be used in
different activities within the app. As you know, onPause() will always be
called before your activity is placed in the background or destroyed, So for
the data to be saved persistently we prefer saving it in onPause(), which
could be restored in onCreate() of the activity. The data stored using
shared preferences are kept private within the scope of the application.
However, shared preferences are different from that activity’s instance
state.
SharedPreferences
Shared Preferences is suitable in different situations. For example, when
the user’s settings need to be saved or to store data that can be used in
different activities within the app. As you know, onPause() will always be
called before your activity is placed in the background or destroyed, So for
the data to be saved persistently we prefer saving it in onPause(), which
could be restored in onCreate() of the activity. The data stored using
shared preferences are kept private within the scope of the application.
However, shared preferences are different from that activity’s instance
state.
How to Create SharedPreferences
The first thing we need to do is to create one shared preferences file per
app. So name it with the package name of your app- unique and easy to
associate the app. When you want to get the values,
call getSharedPreferences() method. Shared Preferences provide modes
of storing the data (private mode and public mode). It is for the backward
compatibility- use only MODE_PRIVATE to be secure.
The Context Modes
• MODE_PUBLIC
• MODE_PRIVATE
• MODE_APPEND
Methods of SharedPreferences
1. contains(String key)
2. edit()
3. getAll()
4. getBoolean(String key, boolean defValue)
5. getFloat(String key, float defValue)
6. getInt(String key, int defValue)
7. getLong(String key, long defValue)
8. getString(String key, String defValue)
9. getStringSet(String key, Set defValues)
10. registerOnSharedPreferencechangeListener(SharedPreferences.OnS
haredPreferencechangeListener listener)
11. unregisterOnSharedPreferencechangeListener(SharedPreferences.O
nSharedPreferencechangeListener listener)
Examples of SharedPreferences
Before using SharedPreferences.

Check Reopen The

Close The
App
Examples of SharedPreferences
After using SharedPreferences.

Check Reopen The

Close The
App
Notifications in Android
A notification is a message you can display
to the user outside of your application's
normal UI. When you tell the system to
issue a notification, it first appears as an
icon in the notification area. To see the
details of the notification, the user opens
the notification drawer. Both the notification
area and the notification drawer are system-
controlled areas that the user can view at
any time.
Notifications in Android
Android Toast class provides a handy way to show users alerts but
problem is that these alerts are not persistent which means alert flashes
on the screen for a few seconds and then disappears.
NotificationCompat.Builder Class
The NotificationCompat.Builder class allows easier control over all the
flags, as well as help constructing the typical notification layouts. Following
are few important and most frequently used methods available as a part of
NotificationCompat.Builder class.
Methods
1. Notification build()
2. NotificationCompat.Builder setAutoCancel (boolean autoCancel)
3. NotificationCompat.Builder setContent (RemoteViews views)
4. NotificationCompat.Builder setContentInfo (CharSequence info)
5. NotificationCompat.Builder setContentIntent (PendingIntent intent)
6. NotificationCompat.Builder setContentText (CharSequence text)
7. NotificationCompat.Builder setContentTitle (CharSequence title)
Methods
8. NotificationCompat.Builder setDefaults (int defaults)
9. NotificationCompat.Builder setLargeIcon (Bitmap icon)
10. NotificationCompat.Builder setNumber (int number)
11. NotificationCompat.Builder setOngoing (boolean ongoing)
12. NotificationCompat.Builder setSmallIcon (int icon)
13. NotificationCompat.Builder setStyle (NotificationCompat.Style style)
14. NotificationCompat.Builder setTicker (CharSequence tickerText)
15. NotificationCompat.Builder setVibrate (long[] pattern)
16. NotificationCompat.Builder setWhen (long when)
Example
Services
A service is a component that runs in the
background to perform long-running
operations without needing to interact with
the user and it works even if application is
destroyed. A service can essentially take
two states −
Service States
• Started - A service is started when an application component, such as
an activity, starts it by calling startService(). Once started, a service can
run in the background indefinitely, even if the component that started it is
destroyed.

• Bound - A service is bound when an application component binds to it

Service is
UN Bounded
running
Service

Service is
Service is Shut
onDestroy() stopped
down (no callback)
Bounded Service Lifecycle
Service is created
onCreate() onBind()
by bindService()

Client Interacts with the service

Bounded Service
onRebind()

Service is Shut
onDestroy() onUnbind()
down
Service Callbacks
• onStartCommand()
• onBind()
• onUnbind()
• onRebind()
• onCreate()
• onDestroy()
Example
Broadcast Receivers
Broadcast Receivers simply respond to
broadcast messages from other
applications or from the system itself.
These messages are sometime called
events or intents. For example,
applications can also initiate broadcasts to
let other applications know that some data
has been downloaded to the device and is
available for them to use, so this is
broadcast receiver who will intercept this
communication and will initiate appropriate
action.
Broadcast Receivers
There are following two important steps to make BroadcastReceiver
works for the system broadcasted intents:
1. Creating the Broadcast Receiver.
2. Registering Broadcast Receiver
Creating Broadcast Receivers
A broadcast receiver is implemented as a subclass
of BroadcastReceiver class and overriding the onReceive() method
where each message is received as a Intent object parameter.
Registering Broadcast Receivers
An application listens for specific broadcast intents by registering a
broadcast receiver in AndroidManifest.xml file. Consider we are going to
register MyReceiver for system generated event
ACTION_BOOT_COMPLETED which is fired by the system once the
Android system has completed the boot process.
Registering Broadcast Receivers
Now whenever your
Android device gets booted,
it will be intercepted by Broadcast
Registers for intents
BroadcastReceiver MyRece to observe Receiver
iver and implemented logic
inside onReceive() will be
executed.

Android
Get notification when
System intent occur
Events Broadcast Receivers
• android.intent.action.BATTERY_CHANGED
• android.intent.action.BATTERY_LOW
• android.intent.action.BATTERY_OKAY
• android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED
• android.intent.action.BUG_REPORT
• android.intent.action.CALL
• android.intent.action.CALL_BUTTON
• android.intent.action.DATE_CHANGED
• android.intent.action.REBOOT
ListView
Android ListView is a view which groups
several items and display them in vertical
scrollable list. The list items are
automatically inserted to the list using
an Adapter that pulls content from a
source such as an array or database.
ListView
An adapter actually bridges between UI components and the data source
that fill data into UI Component. Adapter holds the data and send the data
to adapter view, the view can takes the data from adapter view and shows
the data on different views like as spinner, list view, grid view etc.
ListView
The ListView and GridView are subclasses of AdapterView and they
can be populated by binding them to an Adapter, which retrieves data
from an external source and creates a View that represents each data
entry.
ListView
Android provides several subclasses of Adapter that are useful for
retrieving different kinds of data and building views for an AdapterView (
i.e. ListView or GridView). The common adapters are
• ArrayAdapter
• BaseAdapter
• CursorAdapter
• SimpleCursorAdapter
• SpinnerAdapter
• WrapperListAdapter
ListView Attributes
1. android:id
2. android:divider
3. android:dividerHeight
4. android:entries
5. android:footerDividersEnabled
6. android:headerDividersEnabled
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