Question

I’ve had a look at the documentation, but I’m not sure what would be the best way to approach this.

This is what I’m doing:

mActionBar = getActionBar();
mActionBar.setNavigationMode(ActionBar.NAVIGATION_MODE_LIST);

SpinnerAdapter mSpinnerAdapter = ArrayAdapter.createFromResource(this,
            R.array.platform_list,
            android.R.layout.simple_spinner_dropdown_item);

What I’m trying to do is give the dropdown list a default value – “Please Select a Type”, when the application loads up and nothing is selected yet. This is because the selection will trigger a change in the listview fragment displayed below, and without a selection (at startup) i would like to display a simple placeholder image or something.

Any ideas? Thanks a lot in advance!

Answer 1

You can set the selection of the Spinner to a particular position which can display this text

public void setSelection (int position)

Since: API Level 1
Sets the currently selected item. To support accessibility subclasses that 
override this   method must invoke the overriden super method first.
Parameters

position    Index (starting at 0) of the data item to be selected.

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/AbsSpinner.html#setSelection(int)