CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javaandroid
Bevor
Bevor

Reputation: 8605

android app design: Viewflipper or Activities?

I'm planing some kind of information app for android and I'm not sure what technical design is best (because this is my first real android app).
The app which observes the latest information from an server consists of 4 screens:

My thought is either using 4 Activities each containing one view or using just one Activity which contains a ViewFlipper of these 4 Views. What is the best approach and why?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 448

Answers (1)

user658042
user658042

Reputation:

Activities have their name for a reason. Each "action/activity" should be placed in a seperate activity. The user want's to configure something? Send him to the preference activity. The user wants to take a picture? Send him to a photo activity. And so on.

Therefore I think you should have 3 activities here when you split this by actions:

  • Main screen (user activity "read information/messages")
  • Configuration screen (user activity "change preferences")
  • Message screen (user activity "send a message")

For the last one you could use a ViewFlipper if you want to split the sending into two different layouts.

What advantages does this have?

Well, first of all you don't have a big ball of code in one activity that handles everything. Certainly that's possible, but can get somewhat ugly. Maintainablility here.

Also remember that we are still in a mobile environment. Yes phones are really powerful these days, but they still have very short run times on battery. So don't waste battery when you don't have to. Which would mean in case of one giant activity that everytime the user wants to send just a message, he has to load all the other stuff with it. Unneccessary code executed -> unneccessary CPU cycles -> battery drained for no reason.

Apart from that it's convinient for you because the framework supports you this way. For example: the backstack handles a lot of stuff for you already, e.g. you don't have to manage all the back-key logic (you would have to keep track of the layout and the back key depencies otherwise).

If you want to make use of androids intent system for 3rd party apps, this is also very useful. You can control access to your activities on a per-type basis. E.g. allow other apps to call your message activity, but not your preference activity. If you have one big activity this becomes difficult, with some intent extra parsing just to determine which screen the other apps intents to display. And that's propably the biggest reason why activities are activities. Apps can work on a action-base with each other.

Upvotes: 1

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