Question

My goal is to set a modal view in my Android application. I would like to open one view whose background would be transparent so the user can see the view behind.

1. I’ve heard about using transparent activity but this might freeze the activity behind, ain’t it ?
2. I would like some kind of reusable stuff since this view will call in more than one activity.

Thanks

Answer 1

You can make an Activities background transparent using this style:

<style name="TransparentActivity" parent="android:Theme.Black.NoTitleBar.Fullscreen">
    <item name="android:windowBackground">@android:color/transparent</item>
    <item name="android:colorBackgroundCacheHint">@null</item>
    <item name="android:windowIsTranslucent">true</item>
    <item name="android:windowAnimationStyle">@android:style/Animation</item>
    <item name="android:windowNoTitle">true</item>
    <item name="android:windowContentOverlay">@null</item>
    <item name="android:windowFullscreen">true</item>
</style>   

Declared in the manifest like so:

    <activity
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:name=".activity.DialogActivity"
        android:theme="@style/TransparentActivity" >

I then use this as the layout for my dialogue:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<FrameLayout    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
            android:layout_height="match_parent"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:id="@+id/containerPageContainer">

    <FrameLayout    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                    android:layout_width="match_parent"
                    android:background="@drawable/panel_picture_frame_bg_focus_blue"
                    android:layout_gravity="center"
                    android:id="@+id/dialog"/>


</FrameLayout> 

You can either inflate other layouts and add it to @+id/dialog or use fragments (depending on how brave you are).

Hope that helped!