How to develop an Android app like a static website?

Question

The company I work for asks me to convert their website to an Android app. I am not an expert neither in Java, nor Android SDK. So I do not know what are my options here.

The application looks like this:

So the header (except for the title) and the footer are always constant. And the red parts change to the relevant page when a footer button is clicked.

I know that I should not ask "what is the best approach for this" kind of question. So, how should I do this?

Right now what I'm doing is this:

two static layouts (without activity classes) : header.xml and footer.xml. I <include> them in the activity layouts (like about_us.xml). footer.xml has buttons, which are hooked to onClick events. Buttons are like home , about us , references , contact. And the onClick events are like "load_Page_AboutUs"

So there are 4 functions for each page (activity) to load. This is also a problem I guess. If there is a way to do it like : load_page(String activity_name) I would like it.

But the real problem is :

I have to define all the load_page_x functions in all the activities.

So if I have 4 activities, I define the below functions in 4 different activities :

public void load_page_about(View view)
{
 Intent i = bla();
 startActivity(i);
}
public void load_page_references(View view)
{
 Intent i = bla();
 startActivity(i);
}
// etc..

These set of function definitions exist in all 4 activities. So I think that I'm doing something wrong here. I would appreciate any help to guide me into the right direction. In the end:

What I want is:

• A single layout (xml) for the footer
• A single activity class that can handle the footer buttons' onClick's
• Similarly for the header. And change its title programmatically (or from xml, if possible)

Maybe I should design page content parts as .xml files and programmattically include them in the main_layout.xml is it correct? And how can I do it?

Thanks for any help !

Answer 1

Fastest way would be using a WebView set its java script enabled and load your index web page to it, and you're done! you might need to modify some css to view it nicely on mobile.