Question

Is there a native way to swipe/fling between different ActionBar tabs (the Honeycomb/ICS native one) containing fragments (one per tab)?

I know of the Android Compatibility package, which is used by this solution provided by Google itself. But I don’t want to add the whole library just to use one simple and very common usability pattern.

Even the brand new Android Design Guide advocated swiping between ActionBar tabs, but without mentioning a way to do it natively in Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich.

Answer 1

Is there a native way to swipe/fling between different ActionBar tabs (the Honeycomb/ICS native one) containing fragments (one per tab)?

If by “tab” you mean “tab” (i.e., the thing the user taps on), then tabs will be swipe-able automatically by the OS when it lets you. If you have more tabs than there is room for in the action bar, either the user can swipe back and forth (normal-size screen in portrait), or the tabs will be converted into a Spinner-style drop-down list (normal-size screen in landscape, or both orientations on large/xlarge-size screens).

If by “tab” you mean “tab content” (i.e., the thing that takes up the bulk of the screen), then tabs are not swipeable unless you handle that yourself (e.g., ViewPager).