Programming with Android:

Widgets and Events

Luca Bedogni Marco Di Felice

Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Informazione
Università di Bologna
Outline

What is a Widget?

Widget: TextView and EditText

Widget: Button and CompoundButton

Widget: ImageView

Widget: CheckedTextView

Event Management: Event Handlers

Event Management: Event Listeners

Luca Bedogni, Marco Di Felice - Programming with Android – Resources 2

 Android: Where are we now …

Android Applications’ anatomy:

Activities  Application Components (screens)

Intents  Communication between components
Layouts  Placement of the elements on the screen …
Views  … Elements to be placed!

Widget  Pre-defined, common-used View objects …

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 Widgets: some examples …

 TextView
 EditText
 Button
 ToggleButton
 CheckBox
 Spinner
 DatePicker
 Custom Views

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 Widgets: Java and XML code

 Widgets can be created in Java

 Widgets can be created in XML and accessed through Java

XML
< TextView
android:id="@+id/name1"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content” />

JAVA
public TextView text;
text=(TextView)findViewById(R.id.name1);

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 Widgets: Hierarchy of the classes …

 Widgets are organized on a hierarchy of classes …

View

TextView ImageView

EditView Button CheckedTextView

AutoCompleteTextVie
CompoundButton
w

CheckBox RadioButton ToggleButton

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 Widgets: TextView

 XML tags: <TextView> </TextView>

 Could be filled with strings, HTML markups

 Should specify which type of text is displayed
Not directly editable by users
 Usually used to display static informations

 Some methods:
 void setText(CharSequence text)
 CharSequence getText();

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 Widgets: Linkify elements

 Simple strings that could be linkified automatically.

 How? Pick a normal string, and use Linkify.addLinks() to
declare what kind of link should be created.
 Could manage: Web addresses, Emails, phone numbers, Maps

TextView textView=(TextView) findViewById(R.id.output);

Linkify.addLinks(textView, Linkify.WEB_URLS |
Linkify.WEB_ADDRESSES |
Linkify.PHONE_NUMBERS );
Linkify.addLinks(textView, Linkify.ALL);

 It is possible to define custom Linkify objects. ..

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 Widgets: TextView methods

 Methods to place the text inside a TextView …

 public void setSingleLine(boolean singleLine)
 public void setHorizontallyScrolling(boolean wether)
 public void setLines(int lines)
 public void setEllipsize(TextUtils.TruncateAt where)
 public void setHints(CharSequence hint)

 TextUtils.TruncateAt.END
 TextUtils.TruncateAt.MARQUEE
 TextUtils.TruncateAt.MIDDLE
 TextUtils.TruncateAt.START

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 Widgets: EditText

 Similar to a TextView, but editable by the users

 Used to get information by the users.
 It is possible to declare in the layout file which type of text
will be contained … (NORMAL, EDITABLE, SPANNABLE)

 An appropriate keyboard and display will be used.

 Text selection methods:

public void setSelection(int index)
public void setSelection(int start, int end)

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 Widgets: AutocompleteTextView

 Defined through tag: <AutoCompleteTextView>

 Used to ease the input by the users …
As soon as a user starts to type something, hints will be
displayed
 A list of hints is given via an Adapter
String[] tips=getResources().getStringArray(R.array.nani_array);
ArrayAdapter<String> adapter=new ArrayAdapter(this,
android.R.layout.simple_dropdown_item_1lines, tips);
AutoCompleteTextView acTextView=(AutoCompleteTextView)
findViewById(R.id.inputText);
acTextView.setAdapter(adapter);

Luca Bedogni, Marco Di Felice - Programming with Android (c) Luca Bedogni 2012
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Widgets: AutocompleteTextView

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 Widgets: Button and CompoundButton

 Not really different to manage than a Textview!

 Has events related to clicks, long clicks and so on

 Cannot be directly editable by users

 CompoundButton: Button + state (checked/unchecked)

 Subclasses: CheckBox, RadioButton, ToggleButton
 Methods: public void setChecked(boolean checked)
public void toggle()

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Widgets: Button and CompoundButton

checkBox CompoundButton

public boolean isChecked():

return true if the button is
checked, false otherwise.

Listener:
onCheckedChangeListener

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Widgets: Button and CompoundButton

radioButton CompoundButton

Define multiple (mutual-exclusive)

options through a <RadioGroup>
</RadioGroup> tag.

Only one button can be checked

within the same RadioGroup.

Listener:
OnCheckedChangeListener

Luca Bedogni, Marco Di Felice - Programming with Android (c) Luca Bedogni 2012
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Widgets: Button and CompoundButton

toggleButton CompoundButton

It can assume only 2 states:

checked/unchecked

Different labels for the states with:

android:textOn and android:textOff
XML attributes.

Listener:
OnCheckedChangeListener

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 Widgets: ImageView

 ImageView is a subclass of the

View object. XML Tag: <ImageView>

 Images inside res/drawable (or

obtained with other methods)

 Some methods to manipulate it:

void setScaleType(enum scaleType)
void setAlpha(double alpha)
void setColorFilter(ColorFilter color)

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 Widgets: CheckedTextView

 Checkable version of a TextView

 Usable with a ListView Adapter
 Multiple or single selection of items
(CHOICE_MODE_SINGLE, CHOICE_MODE_MULTIPLE)

 Methods:
void setChoiceMode(int choiceMode)
long[] getCheckItemIds()
int getCheckedItemPosition()

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 Widgets: Other elements …

See the official documentation for the complete list:

 AnalogClock Widget
 DigitalClock Widget
 DataPicker Widget
 …. … …

 As an alternative, it is possible to create custom View …

 Ad hoc components, code reuse …

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 Views and Events

 The users interacts with the Views …

 … Upon certain action, an appropriate event will be fired

 Reacting to this events makes the activity interactive

 Events for click, long click, gestures, focus, external events …

 PROBLEM: How to handle these events?

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 Views and Events

 Two ways to handle the View events:

1.Events Handlers.
Some Views have callback methods to handle specific events.
when a Button is touched  onTouchEvent() called
Es.
boolean onKeyDown(int keycode, KeyEvent event)
boolean onKeyUp(int keycode, KeyEvent event)
boolean onKeyMultiple (int keycode, KeyEvent event)
….
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 Views and Events

1.Events Handlers.
Some views have callback methods to handle specific events.
when a Button is touched  onTouchEvent() called

PROBLEM: to intercept an event, you must extend the View class

and override the callback method … not very practical!

 In practice: use Events Handlers for custom components …

 … use Events Listeners for common View/Widget components …

Luca Bedogni, Marco Di Felice - Programming with Android (c) Luca Bedogni 2012
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 Views and Events

1.Events Listeners.

 A View class contain a collection of nested interfaces

(listeners).

 Each interface handles a single type of events…

 Each interface contains a single callback method …

 This method is called in occurrence of the event of the View.

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 Views and Events: ActionListener

Some ActionListeners:
OnClickListener
method: onClick()
OnLongClickListener
method: onLongClick()
OnFocusChangeListener
method: onFocusChange()
OnKeyListener
method: onKey()

Luca Bedogni, Marco Di Felice - Programming with Android (c) Luca Bedogni 2012
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 Views and Events: ActionListener

More ActionListener:

OnCheckedChangeListener
method: onCheckedChanged()

OnTouchListener
method: onTouch()

OnCreateContextMenuListener
method: onCreateContextMenu()
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 Views and Events: ActionListener

To handle events through ActionListener:

1.Implement the callback method
2.Define an ActionListener object as an anonymous class
Button btn = an
3.Pass (Button)findViewById(R.id.btn);
instance of the ActionListener implementation to the View
through the View.setOnXXXEventListener() method
btn.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
Button btn = (Button)findViewById(R.id.btn);
@Override
btn.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View view) {
@Override
public void onClick(View view) {
// Event management
// Event management
}
} });
}); Luca Bedogni, Marco Di Felice –(c) Luca Bedogni 2012
Events and Widgets
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 Views and Events: ActionListener

To handle events through ActionListener:

1.Implement the callback method
2.Implement the nested interface in the Activity
Button btn = (Button)findViewById(R.id.btn);
3.Pass an instance of the ActionListener implementation to the View
through the View.setOnXXXEventListener()
btn.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() { method
public class ExampleActivity extends Activity implements OnClickListener {
@Override
…
public void onClick(View view) {
Button button=(Button)findViewById(R.id.buttonNext);
button.setOnClickListener(this);
// Event management
…
public void onClick(View v) { }
}
}
}); Luca Bedogni, Marco Di Felice –(c) Luca Bedogni 2012
Events and Widgets
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 Views and Events: ActionListener

 Possible to perform some events in the code

 Tipically in the form performSomething()

 Used to simulate an event

 The corresponding listener (if set) will be fired …

 Give a result (true or false) depending if the component has

a listener or not!

Luca Bedogni, Marco Di Felice –(c)Events

Luca Bedogni 2012
and Widgets
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