Lecture 04

GUI Widgets (Cont...)

Smart Application Development
Engr. Adeel Asghar
Lecturer
Department of Computer Science
NUML RWP
e-mail: adeel.asghar@numl.edu.pk
 Menus
(link)
Menu: Common user interface component in many types of applications.
• For all menu types, Android provides a
standard XML format to define menu
items.

• Instead of building a menu in your

activity's code, you should define a
menu and all its items in an XML menu
resource.

https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/menus.html
 Action
Bar
Action bar: top-level menu of app functions
• replaces older "Menu" button
(which is now discouraged in Android3+)
• identifies current activity/app to user
• make common actions prominent and
available
• make less common actions available
through a drop-down menu

https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/actionbar.html
 Support for
Action Bar
• make activity class extend AppCompatActivity
– write methods: onCreateOptionsMenu,
onOptionsItemSelected

• declare the menu items in res/menu/menu_activity.xml

– decide which items have icons, which have text, which should appear in
main menu, which in "overflow" submenu
– need to place icon image files in res/drawable folder

• handle events
– write code in onOptionsItemSelected to check what option was
clicked and respond accordingly
Making Menu in
AppCompatActivity
Making Menu in
AppCompatActivity (Cont…)
Defining a Menu in XML
• Using a menu resource is a good practice for a few
reasons:
– It's easier to visualize the menu structure in XML.
– It separates the content for the menu from your
application's behavioral code.
– It allows you to create alternative menu configurations for
different platform versions, screen sizes, and other
configurations by leveraging the app resources framework.
Defining a Menu in XML
(Cont...)
Solution to Menu with Icons and
Text items
 Rating Bar
(link)
A RatingBar is an extension of SeekBar and ProgressBar that
shows a rating in stars.

• The user can touch/drag or use

arrow keys to set the rating when
using the default size RatingBar.

• When using a RatingBar that

supports user interaction, placing
widgets to the left or right of the
RatingBar is discouraged.

https://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/RatingBar.html
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Moasure – the smart tape
measure
Topics Covered

– http://developer.android.com/guide/topics
(mentioned in slides)
Any Question?