Sunday, July 8, 2012

Example of using PreferenceFragment

In my old post "Preferences and SharedPreferences" describe how to implement PreferenceActivity calling deprecated addPreferencesFromResource() method. PreferenceActivity is the base class for an activity to show a hierarchy of preferences to the user. Prior to HONEYCOMB this class only allowed the display of a single set of preference; this functionality should now be found in the new PreferenceFragment class.

It's a example of using PreferenceFragment.

Example of PreferenceFragment


New a Android Application Project, AndroidPreferenceFragment, with Build SDK target Android 4.1 (API 16) and Minimum Required Android 3.0 (API 11), BlankActivity with Navigation Type of None.

Create /res/xml/preferences.xml to define our preferences.
<PreferenceScreen
        xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

    <PreferenceCategory
            android:title="PreferenceCategory A">

        <CheckBoxPreference
                android:key="checkbox_preference"
                android:title="title_checkbox_preference"
                android:summary="summary_checkbox_preference" />

    </PreferenceCategory>

    <PreferenceCategory
            android:title="PreferenceCategory B">

        <EditTextPreference
                android:key="edittext_preference"
                android:title="title_edittext_preference"
                android:summary="summary_edittext_preference"
                android:dialogTitle="dialog_title_edittext_preference" />

    </PreferenceCategory>

</PreferenceScreen>


Create PrefsFragment.java extends PreferenceFragment to addPreferencesFromResource.
package com.example.androidpreferencefragment;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.preference.PreferenceFragment;

public class PrefsFragment extends PreferenceFragment {

 @Override
 public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
  // TODO Auto-generated method stub
  super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
  
  // Load the preferences from an XML resource
        addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.preferences);
 }

}


Create SetPreferenceActivity.java to load PrefsFragment.
package com.example.androidpreferencefragment;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;

public class SetPreferenceActivity extends Activity {

 @Override
 protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
  // TODO Auto-generated method stub
  super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
  
  getFragmentManager().beginTransaction().replace(android.R.id.content,
                new PrefsFragment()).commit();
 }

}


Modify the main layout, /res/layout/activity_main.xml, to show the preference.
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical" >

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:padding="@dimen/padding_medium"
        android:text="@string/hello_world"
        tools:context=".MainActivity" />
    
    <CheckBox
        android:id="@+id/prefCheckBox"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="CheckBoxPreference" />
    
    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/prefEditText"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
        
</LinearLayout>


The main activity, MainActivity.java.
package com.example.androidpreferencefragment;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.preference.PreferenceManager;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.content.SharedPreferences;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuItem;
import android.widget.CheckBox;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {
 
 CheckBox prefCheckBox;
 TextView prefEditText;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
        
        prefCheckBox = (CheckBox)findViewById(R.id.prefCheckBox);
     prefEditText = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.prefEditText);
     
     loadPref();
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.activity_main, menu);
        return true;
    }

 @Override
 public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {

  /*
   * Because it's onlt ONE option in the menu.
   * In order to make it simple, We always start SetPreferenceActivity
   * without checking.
   */
  
  Intent intent = new Intent();
        intent.setClass(MainActivity.this, SetPreferenceActivity.class);
        startActivityForResult(intent, 0); 
  
        return true;
 }

 @Override
 protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent data) {
  // TODO Auto-generated method stub
  //super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);
  
  /*
   * To make it simple, always re-load Preference setting.
   */
  
  loadPref();
 }
    
 private void loadPref(){
  SharedPreferences mySharedPreferences = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(this);
  
  boolean my_checkbox_preference = mySharedPreferences.getBoolean("checkbox_preference", false);
  prefCheckBox.setChecked(my_checkbox_preference);

  String my_edittext_preference = mySharedPreferences.getString("edittext_preference", "");
     prefEditText.setText(my_edittext_preference);

 }
        
}


Finally, modify AndroidManifest.xml to add SetPreferenceActivity.
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.example.androidpreferencefragment"
    android:versionCode="1"
    android:versionName="1.0" >

    <uses-sdk
        android:minSdkVersion="11"
        android:targetSdkVersion="15" />

    <application
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >
        <activity
            android:name=".MainActivity"
            android:label="@string/title_activity_main" >
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
        <activity
            android:name=".SetPreferenceActivity"
            android:label="@string/title_activity_main" >
        </activity>
    </application>

</manifest>


Download the files.

Next:
- PreferenceFragment with ListPreference


18 comments:

Unknown said...

Thank you very much fir this I have been looking all over for an example of this

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the nice tutorial :)

Anonymous said...

Excellent. Couldn't find a working example anywhere but here :)

Anonymous said...

OH MY GOD Thank you!!!!!!!

I forgot I needed to modify the manifest lol.

Anonymous said...

Very good it works for deprecated method addpreferencesfromresource at API 11.

Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot, the best well explained example of setting fragments

Anonymous said...

If you would like to change a preference summary you would need to handle that preference somehow. The method findpreference() is deprecated and ever returns null in fragment preference, so, how do you do to change the preference summary?
Thanks for your tutorial

Erik said...

hello,

As my understanding, what deprecated is PreferenceActivity. That means you still can use findPreference() of PreferenceFragment.

Sun Star said...

I have a question about a line:

getFragmentManager().beginTransaction().replace(android.R.id.content,
new PrefsFragment()).commit();

I get an error under "R.id.content"

The error is: content cannont be resolved or is not field

I am wondering what am i suppose to replace "content"

what is the R.id.content pointing to?

Anonymous said...

Thank you Very much Worked a treat

Anonymous said...

Big thanks for the tutorial...but i have a problem, instead of showing the checkbox uncheck in the main activity, how would i mute the application sound on/off according the the checkbox in the prefs activity....????HELP

Pawan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

I've been struggling with this problem for hours and hours where just replacing the fragments left the preferences fragment background as transparent and it would overlay on top of other content.

This fixed that for me, so thanks!!

VIVEK RAVI said...

content cannont be resolved or is not field in "R.id.content"

Anonymous said...

This helped so much, so good to have a bit of code to copy and integrate

Anonymous said...

How to resolve situation when we have several of these PReferenceCategories with 2-3 preferencies..? When we add all of this fragments to the Activity Layout some of them will not be visible because they are out of screen. LinearLayout wrapped in a ScrollView makes just more troubles.. Any hints?

Anonymous said...

OHHH!!! GOD!! Thank youuu sooo muchhhh this is exactly what I was searching for Thank youu ToT !!

Anonymous said...

Great tutorial! I couldnt find any clear documentation on how to conncect the pieces. Thank you