Question

My main layout is like this:

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Bottom side is fixed, top side is changing whenever a button is clicked. Using 2 different linear layouts for top and bottom, and a different Activity for every button at the bottom. Actually it’s working, but I’m not sure if it’s the right way. I feel like I’m overusing Activities.

Should I be going back and forth in Activities for this kind of setup? Or is there a better way to solve this issue?

Answer 1

The answer is given by Singularity: fragments
http://developer.android.com/guide/components/fragments.html

A Fragment represents a behavior or a portion of user interface in an Activity. You can combine multiple fragments in a single activity to build a multi-pane UI and reuse a fragment in multiple activities. You can think of a fragment as a modular section of an activity, which has its own lifecycle, receives its own input events, and which you can add or remove while the activity is running (sort of like a “sub activity” that you can reuse in different activities).

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v4.app.Fragment;
import android.view.LayoutInflater;
import android.view.ViewGroup;

public class ArticleFragment extends Fragment {
    @Override
    public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
        Bundle savedInstanceState) {
     // Inflate the layout for this fragment
        return inflater.inflate(R.layout.article_view, container, false);
    }
}

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="horizontal"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent">

<fragment android:name="com.example.android.fragments.HeadlinesFragment"
          android:id="@+id/headlines_fragment"
          android:layout_weight="1"
          android:layout_width="0dp"
          android:layout_height="match_parent" />

<fragment android:name="com.example.android.fragments.ArticleFragment"
          android:id="@+id/article_fragment"
          android:layout_weight="2"
          android:layout_width="0dp"
          android:layout_height="match_parent" />

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v4.app.FragmentActivity;

public class MainActivity extends FragmentActivity {
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.news_articles);
    }
}