CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidandroid-preferencesandroid-sharedpreferences
Lukap
Lukap

Reputation: 31963

The summary field of PreferenceCategory tag

I have seen something like this:

<PreferenceCategory xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:key="vegi_category" android:title="Vegetables"

    android:summary="Preferences related to vegetable">  <!-- Why is this here? -->

    <CheckBoxPreference android:key="tomato_selection_pref"
        android:title="Tomato " android:summary="It's actually a fruit" />
    <CheckBoxPreference android:key="potato_selection_pref"
        android:title="Potato" android:summary="My favorite vegetable" />
</PreferenceCategory>

But I do not get it why is there a summary field for the pref category:

(android:summary="Preferences related to vegetable") ?

When I use pref screen the summary is presented in the view, but this is not a case with pref category. Is the existence of summary in pref category just a convention of it can be seen somehow ?

What is the actual usage of summary in pref category element ?

Upvotes: 6

Views: 5427

Answers (3)

Vlad
Vlad

Reputation: 8552

@ehartwell is absolutely right
my layouts for diff versions are:

for pre-lollipop

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:orientation="vertical">

  <TextView android:id="@android:id/title"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_marginTop="6dp"
    android:textSize="14sp"
    android:textStyle="bold"
    android:textAllCaps="true"
    android:paddingLeft="8dp"
    android:paddingRight="8dp"/>

  <TextView android:id="@android:id/summary"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_marginTop="-5dp"
    android:textSize="12sp"
    style="?android:attr/listSeparatorTextViewStyle"/>

</LinearLayout>

for post-lollipop

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:paddingLeft="@dimen/preference_category_margin"
    android:paddingRight="@dimen/preference_category_margin"
    android:orientation="vertical">

  <TextView android:id="@android:id/title"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_marginTop="6dp"
    android:textStyle="bold"
    android:textSize="13sp"
    android:textAllCaps="false"
    android:textColor="@color/colorAccent"/>

  <TextView android:id="@android:id/summary"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:textSize="12sp"
    android:textColor="@color/colorAccent"
    android:textAllCaps="false"/>

</LinearLayout>

@dimen/preference_category_margin is diff for special screen size
16dp or 24dp
and they are pretty well:)

Upvotes: 0

Apirak Lunla
Apirak Lunla

Reputation: 645

You could just use Preference and android:summary.

<PreferenceCategory xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:key="vegi_category" android:title="Vegetables">

    <Preference android:summary="Preferences related to vegetable" />

    <CheckBoxPreference android:key="tomato_selection_pref"
        android:title="Tomato " android:summary="It's actually a fruit" />
    <CheckBoxPreference android:key="potato_selection_pref"
        android:title="Potato" android:summary="My favorite vegetable" />
</PreferenceCategory>

Upvotes: 8

ehartwell
ehartwell

Reputation: 1677

The standard PreferenceCategory widget shows only the title; the android:summary attribute is ignored.

That's because the default layout (preference_category.xml) contains only a single TextView for the title field:

<!-- Layout used for PreferenceCategory in a PreferenceActivity. -->
<TextView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    style="?android:attr/listSeparatorTextViewStyle"
    android:id="@+android:id/title"
/>

If you want to show the summary as well, you can specify your own layout using the android:layout attribute. For example:

<PreferenceCategory android:title="Category" android:summary="This is the summary"
                    android:layout="@layout/preference_category_summary">

Where layout/preference_category_summary.xml is something like:

<!-- Layout used for PreferenceCategory + SUMMARY in a PreferenceActivity. -->
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
              android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
              android:orientation="vertical">
    <TextView android:id="@+android:id/title" 
              style="?android:attr/listSeparatorTextViewStyle"/>
    <TextView android:id="@+android:id/summary"
              android:paddingLeft="5dip" android:paddingRight="dip"
              android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>
</LinearLayout>

Before you go ahead and do this, however, you should consider whether it's less or more confusing to the user. Unless you style the summary text carefully, it will either jump out of the screen or appear to attach to the first preference in the category.

Upvotes: 11

Related Questions