I am saving a number of preferences which are defined in an xml Preference Screen file. Included are a few names and phone numbers. I have managed to connect the contacts list to the preference screen so I only need to show on the preference list one entry and then I can recover the name and number from the contacts. However if both name and number are not shown on the preference screen as seperate items then I do not seem to able to save the missing item.
Are Preferences only available if they are part of a displayed screen?
No, see http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data/data-storage.html#pref