Question

I have 4 views that are controlled by 1 SherlockMapActivity. Currently I am switching between views with the tabs by removeAllViews() and then re-inflate the view again. This seams like a very inefficient way of going about it.

Is there any way to just “hide” a view that has been inflated already and re-position a new view to the front? I have tried every variation of setVisibility, etc, to no avail. Here is how I am going about it right now:

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
{
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    //load our views!
    this.baseViewGroup = (ViewGroup)this.findViewById(android.R.id.content);

    this.mapView = new MapView(ActivityMain.this, MAP_API_KEY);
    this.mapView.setClickable(true);

    this.createMenu();
}

@Override
public void onTabSelected(Tab tab, FragmentTransaction ft)
{
    Log.v(CLASS_NAME, "tab selected: "+tab.getPosition());

    if (0 == tab.getPosition())
    {
        this.baseViewGroup.removeAllViews();
        this.getLayoutInflater().inflate(R.layout.map, this.baseViewGroup);
    }
    else if (1 == tab.getPosition())
    {
        this.baseViewGroup.removeAllViews();
        this.getLayoutInflater().inflate(R.layout.list, this.baseViewGroup);
    }
}

I can then do fancy things with ViewControllers (of sorts) to restart the previous state of the view when it is re-created but this just seams crazy. Is there a better way to do this?

Edit
I have tried saving the views (inflate once, remove but then just re-add) but I get this strange behavior. Basically, all inflated views are shown on top of each other, in a semi-transparent way. No amount of setVisibility() makes them totally go away.

The code I tried (added to onCreate() and onTabSelected() where appropriate):

//in onCreate()
this.mapLayout = this.getLayoutInflater().inflate(R.layout.map, this.baseViewGroup);
this.moreLayout = this.getLayoutInflater().inflate(R.layout.more, this.baseViewGroup);

//in onTabSelected()
ViewGroup content = (ViewGroup)this.mapLayout.getParent();
content.removeAllViews();
content.addView(this.mapLayout);

Answer 1

Donot inflate views again and again. instead, have 4 class level view variables like

private View firstView;
private View secondView;
private View thirdView;
private View fourthView;

now during every tab change/press. remove all child views from parent and add, appropriate view to the parent. like,

parentView.removeAllViews();
parentView.addView(secondView);

Edit:

Pass null for parentView.

instead of this,

this.moreLayout = this.getLayoutInflater().inflate(R.layout.more, this.baseViewGroup);

do this,

this.moreLayout = this.getLayoutInflater().inflate(R.layout.more, null);