this is not a technical question, but one for advice regarding the best practices in designing an Android tablet UI.
I’ve got my concept of an Android Phone app pinned down.
The first activity (master view) launched contains a tab bar with three fragments from which the user can launch detail view activities of different sorts.
Both the master-view activity and the detail-view activities have actions in their action bars. Different detail views have different action items.
My question is: How should I organize and display the action items on a tablet, where an activity combines both views side by side?
The problem is the unified action bar for both the master-view fragment and whatever kind of detail fragment is shown. I do not think it is a good idea to start messing with the contents of the action bar whenever a different kind of detail view is opened.
The Android Design Guide does not tell you much on that front. There is a sample of a Contacts app in the “Multi-pane Layouts” section, but it does not actually deal with the problem. It evades it, by putting the single relevant action as an icon inside the detail view fragment.
Any advice with regards to best practices and references are appreciated.
I would suggest leaving your master details icons in the action bar, whilst putting your details view icons in another view/area within the details fragment.
My reasoning would be that icons in the action bar affect / are associated with the whole app / view on screen. Whilst your details icons only affect the details view and therefor should not be in the action menu when showing multiple fragments.
I guess you will have to see how the designs look..
I am not a fan of the action bar icons being changed from within the same activity (even if it contains multiple fragments), however when you load a new activity (like in your phone design) then I say yeah throw them in the action bar.