Question

I am attempting to create a program with a set of dynamically loaded layout “pages”. I have the base layout created with a minimal default skeleton of the Views common to each page. For each page I was going to hard code all the views to be swapped (:facepalm). My next thought was to create a text file and put the necessary data in a well formatted design. Only then I realized that’s exactly what the XML files are. So what I would like to do is create an XML file of the pages with the data exactly as it would appear in the original layout file. Then as each page is loaded (possibly unload another page), pull the XML data for that page and insert it into the current base layout structure.

My page data

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<pageList>
    <page:1>
        <Button .../>
        <EditText .../>
    </page>
    <page:2>
    ...
</pagelist>

The base XML layout

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent" android:weightSum="1">
<LinearLayout android:id="@+id/linearLayout1"
    android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_weight="1.00" android:weightSum="1">
    <EditText android:id="@+id/editText1" android:inputType="textMultiLine"
        android:layout_width="0dp" android:layout_weight="0.30"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"></EditText>
    <RelativeLayout android:layout_width="0dp"
        android:id="@+id/orientationLayout" android:layout_weight="0.70"
        android:layout_height="match_parent">
        <dynamically insert my PAGE here>

I am new to Android programming and have only a little experience in generating interfaces from XML. In programming C# and XML for a previous job, I would have to pull the data directly from an embedded XML file and use that to create the Button or TextBox myself. Do I need to do similar in this case or is there a way to automatically load it?

I have looked this up for a while and most answers I found on this site and other places are from months ago or longer. Those answers tend to range from IMPOSSIBLE to do it yourself. I’m hoping maybe in the past few months there might have been a change to the system I have yet to find.

Answer 1

You are probably looking for a ViewStub.

A ViewStub is an invisible, zero-sized View that can be used to lazily
inflate layout resources at runtime. When a ViewStub is made visible,
or when inflate() is invoked, the layout resource is inflated. The
ViewStub then replaces itself in its parent with the inflated View or
Views. […]

You can use this like a normal view in your layout and use findViewById() to reference it in code. After that use ViewStub.setLayoutResource() to set layout that you want to show and call ViewStub.inflate() to show it. This way you can write a normal XML
layout file for every (sub-)page you need.

Also see this article.

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Edit: Or probably not, I have to mention that the stub gets removed from the view hierachy after inflating. So, depends on your actual use case if this is helpful.