Android Tab Layout with Swipeable Views

My previous article explains about Android Tab Layout and it got very good ranking in search engines. But unfortunately TabHost is deprecated by android in favor of fragments. So it is suggested that use fragment to achieve tab layout.

This article shows you how to create tab layout using fragments and viewpager. Also you can swipe between tab view as it is the functionality of viewpager which is not possible when using TabHost.

Android Material Design Tab Layout

Although this article explains the Tab Layout in well detailed manner, lot of the methods used this article were deprecated. I strongly suggest check out the latest article Android Material Design Tabs (with Android Design Support Library) once you are done through this article.

ViewPager and Fragments

Before getting into this tutorial it is suggested to have knowledge on Fragments and ViewPager as these two are main concepts used here. Unfortunately I haven’t covered about fragements and viewpager on androidhive 🙁

Layout Overview

Checkout the following pic which explains the complete overview of layout architecture. Basically we are using ViewPager as main layout and for individual pager views we use Fragments. The tabs are part of Action Bar.

Creating new Project

Even though you are not familiar with ViewPager or Fragments, don’t worry. You will get an idea about what those are and how to use them once you are done through this article. So let’s start by creating a new project.

1. Create a new project in Eclipse from File ⇒ New ⇒ Android ⇒ Application Project. While creating the project select the app theme which has Action Bar as shown in the below image.

2. As we are going to use Fragments, extend your main activity from FragmentActivity. Also implement this class from ActionBar.TabListener as we are adding Tabs too.

public class MainActivity extends FragmentActivity implements
		ActionBar.TabListener {

3. Open main activity layout file and add ViewPager element. (My layout file for main activity is activity_main.xml)

<android.support.v4.view.ViewPager xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/pager"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent">
</android.support.v4.view.ViewPager>

4. I normally prefer to create a separate package for adapter classes just to separate them from activity classes. So create a new package named your_package_name.adapter. I named my new package as info.androidhive.tabsswipe.adapter

5. I am creating a FragmentPagerAdapter class to provide views to tab fragments. Create a class called TabsPagerAdapter.java under adapter package. This adapter provides fragment views to tabs which we are going to create them later in this tutorial.

package info.androidhive.tabsswipe.adapter;

import info.androidhive.tabsswipe.GamesFragment;
import info.androidhive.tabsswipe.MoviesFragment;
import info.androidhive.tabsswipe.TopRatedFragment;
import android.support.v4.app.Fragment;
import android.support.v4.app.FragmentManager;
import android.support.v4.app.FragmentPagerAdapter;

public class TabsPagerAdapter extends FragmentPagerAdapter {

	public TabsPagerAdapter(FragmentManager fm) {
		super(fm);
	}

	@Override
	public Fragment getItem(int index) {

		switch (index) {
		case 0:
			// Top Rated fragment activity
			return new TopRatedFragment();
		case 1:
			// Games fragment activity
			return new GamesFragment();
		case 2:
			// Movies fragment activity
			return new MoviesFragment();
		}

		return null;
	}

	@Override
	public int getCount() {
		// get item count - equal to number of tabs
		return 3;
	}

}

Adding Tabs to Action Bar

6. In order to display tabs we don’t have to use any other UI element like TabHost. Action bar has the inbuilt capability of adding tabs. All we have to do is enable it using setNavigationMode(ActionBar.NAVIGATION_MODE_TABS) method. Open your MainActivity.java do the following.

Here I am adding three tabs Top Rated, Games, Movies to action bar. So I just stored all the tab names in a String array and added them to action bar using a for loop.

public class MainActivity extends FragmentActivity implements
		ActionBar.TabListener {

	private ViewPager viewPager;
	private TabsPagerAdapter mAdapter;
	private ActionBar actionBar;
	// Tab titles
	private String[] tabs = { "Top Rated", "Games", "Movies" };

	@Override
	protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
		super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
		setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

		// Initilization
		viewPager = (ViewPager) findViewById(R.id.pager);
		actionBar = getActionBar();
		mAdapter = new TabsPagerAdapter(getSupportFragmentManager());

		viewPager.setAdapter(mAdapter);
		actionBar.setHomeButtonEnabled(false);
		actionBar.setNavigationMode(ActionBar.NAVIGATION_MODE_TABS);		

		// Adding Tabs
		for (String tab_name : tabs) {
			actionBar.addTab(actionBar.newTab().setText(tab_name)
					.setTabListener(this));
		}

If you run the project, you can see the tabs displaying under action bar.

Adding Views for Tabs

We already returned respected fragments for tabs in the adapter class. To make it simple I am creating very simple layout for each tab and leaving it to you to build your own UI depending on your requirement. For now I just displayed a label in the view with some background color.

» First Tab View

7. The first tab I added is Top Rated. Create a new layout file under src ⇒ res folder named fragment_top_rated.xml and paste the following code.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:background="#fa6a6a" >
    
    <TextView android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:gravity="center"
        android:text="Design Top Rated Screen"
        android:textSize="20dp"
        android:layout_centerInParent="true"/>
    

</RelativeLayout>

8. Also create respected Fragment activity class for this view. Create a new class named TopRatedFragment.java under your main package.

package info.androidhive.tabsswipe;

import info.androidhive.tabsswipe.R;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v4.app.Fragment;
import android.view.LayoutInflater;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;

public class TopRatedFragment extends Fragment {

	@Override
	public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
			Bundle savedInstanceState) {

		View rootView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_top_rated, container, false);
		
		return rootView;
	}
}

» Second Tab View

The second tab in the list is Games. Just like above create a layout file and activity file for this tab.

9. Create a new layout file under src ⇒ res folder named fragment_games.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:background="#ff8400" >
    
    <TextView android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:gravity="center"
        android:text="Design Games Screen"
        android:textSize="20dp"
        android:layout_centerInParent="true"/>
    

</RelativeLayout>

10. Create a new class named GamesFragment.java with following code.

package info.androidhive.tabsswipe;

import info.androidhive.tabsswipe.R;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v4.app.Fragment;
import android.view.LayoutInflater;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;

public class GamesFragment extends Fragment {

	@Override
	public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
			Bundle savedInstanceState) {

		View rootView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_games, container, false);
		
		return rootView;
	}
}

» Third Tab View

This third tab is Movies. This one need a layout file and activity class.

11. Create a layout file called fragment_movies.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical" 
    android:background="#17df0d">
    
    <TextView android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:gravity="center"
        android:text="Design Movies Screen"
        android:textSize="20dp"
        android:layout_centerInParent="true"/>
    

</RelativeLayout>

12. Also create activity class for this view named MoviesFragment.java

package info.androidhive.tabsswipe;

import info.androidhive.tabsswipe.R;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v4.app.Fragment;
import android.view.LayoutInflater;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;

public class MoviesFragment extends Fragment {

	@Override
	public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
			Bundle savedInstanceState) {

		View rootView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_movies, container, false);
		
		return rootView;
	}

}

Run the project and check whether the views for tabs are added or not.

And this is how it looks in landscape mode

Tab Change Listener

If you run the project you can see the swiping views working, but if you select a tab, view won’t change automatically. This is because ViewPager didn’t know about the tab change event. We have to manually change the view using Tab change listener.

13. In your MainActivity.java class add following code.

@Override
	public void onTabReselected(Tab tab, FragmentTransaction ft) {
	}

	@Override
	public void onTabSelected(Tab tab, FragmentTransaction ft) {
		// on tab selected
		// show respected fragment view
		viewPager.setCurrentItem(tab.getPosition());
	}

	@Override
	public void onTabUnselected(Tab tab, FragmentTransaction ft) {
	}

View Change Listener

14. As well if you swipe the view, you can’t see respected tab selected. Here also using ViewPager setOnPageChangeListener() we have to select the respected tab manually.

		/**
		 * on swiping the viewpager make respective tab selected
		 * */
		viewPager.setOnPageChangeListener(new ViewPager.OnPageChangeListener() {

			@Override
			public void onPageSelected(int position) {
				// on changing the page
				// make respected tab selected
				actionBar.setSelectedNavigationItem(position);
			}

			@Override
			public void onPageScrolled(int arg0, float arg1, int arg2) {
			}

			@Override
			public void onPageScrollStateChanged(int arg0) {
			}
		});

After adding these two listeners, if you run the project you can see everything working good.

Complete Code

Below is the complete code for MainActivity.java class

package info.androidhive.tabsswipe;

import info.androidhive.tabsswipe.adapter.TabsPagerAdapter;
import info.androidhive.tabsswipe.R;
import android.app.ActionBar;
import android.app.ActionBar.Tab;
import android.app.FragmentTransaction;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v4.app.FragmentActivity;
import android.support.v4.view.ViewPager;
import android.view.Menu;

public class MainActivity extends FragmentActivity implements
		ActionBar.TabListener {

	private ViewPager viewPager;
	private TabsPagerAdapter mAdapter;
	private ActionBar actionBar;
	// Tab titles
	private String[] tabs = { "Top Rated", "Games", "Movies" };

	@Override
	protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
		super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
		setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

		// Initilization
		viewPager = (ViewPager) findViewById(R.id.pager);
		actionBar = getActionBar();
		mAdapter = new TabsPagerAdapter(getSupportFragmentManager());

		viewPager.setAdapter(mAdapter);
		actionBar.setHomeButtonEnabled(false);
		actionBar.setNavigationMode(ActionBar.NAVIGATION_MODE_TABS);		

		// Adding Tabs
		for (String tab_name : tabs) {
			actionBar.addTab(actionBar.newTab().setText(tab_name)
					.setTabListener(this));
		}

		/**
		 * on swiping the viewpager make respective tab selected
		 * */
		viewPager.setOnPageChangeListener(new ViewPager.OnPageChangeListener() {

			@Override
			public void onPageSelected(int position) {
				// on changing the page
				// make respected tab selected
				actionBar.setSelectedNavigationItem(position);
			}

			@Override
			public void onPageScrolled(int arg0, float arg1, int arg2) {
			}

			@Override
			public void onPageScrollStateChanged(int arg0) {
			}
		});
	}

	@Override
	public void onTabReselected(Tab tab, FragmentTransaction ft) {
	}

	@Override
	public void onTabSelected(Tab tab, FragmentTransaction ft) {
		// on tab selected
		// show respected fragment view
		viewPager.setCurrentItem(tab.getPosition());
	}

	@Override
	public void onTabUnselected(Tab tab, FragmentTransaction ft) {
	}

}

Ravi Tamada

Hi there! I am Founder at androidhive and programming enthusiast. My skills includes Android, iOS, PHP, Ruby on Rails and lot more. If you have any idea that you would want me to develop? Let’s talk: ravi@androidhive.info