Coding modern UI - Actionbar, Drag & Drop, Swipe to dismiss

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Android UI patterns What? Why? How?

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What are covered?

● Action bar● Drag & Drop sorting● Swipe to dismiss

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Action Bar

Dedicated space at the top of each screen.

Introduced in Android 3.0 (Honeycomb).

Alternative to the menu button.

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Action Bar

● Actions● Navigation● Branding

● One of the most important design elements● Consistency with core and other Apps.● Every modern Android app should have it.

Absolutely no exception.

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Knowing is not enough.

● My own example.● Not using Action Bar

correctly.● Actions and

navigation in the content area.

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Better

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General Organization

1. App icon

2. View control

3. Action buttons

4. Action overflow

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Action buttons

● Prioritize your actions using FIT scheme. (Frequent, Important, Typical).

● If either F, I or T apply, then action bar. Otherwise, action overflow.

● Action overflow: Provides access to less frequently used actions.

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Split Action Bar

1. Main Action bar

2. Top bar

3. Bottom bar

Be careful. Can be overwhelming.

Note: You cannot have actions both on top and bottom.

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Split Action bar

Do not use it for navigation please.

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View Controls

Three different controls to allow users to switch between data in different views.– Tabs

– Spinners

– Drawers

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Tabs

● To switch views frequently.● To be highly aware of the alternate views.● Fixed tabs● Scrollable tabs

Always allow swiping left or right for switching between tabs.

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Tabs

Fixed tabs Scrollable tabs

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Spinners

● Drop down menu.● User switching

between views of same data set or sets of the same type.

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Drawers

● Slide-out menu.

● Direct navigation to a number of views without direct relationships between each other.

● Topmost level of app's hierarchy.

● Opened by Up caret & edge swipe or swipe from anywhere.

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Branding

● Branding does not stop at ActionBar.

● Use Android Holo Colors Generator.( android-holo-colors.com )

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Branding done right

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ActionBar Implementation

● Available for Android 3.0 and above.● Use ActionBarSherlock for 2.x and up.● ActionBarSherlock uses native implementation

for 4.0+ and custom implementation for previous versions.

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ActionBarSherlock implementation

● Extend SherlockActivity or SherlockFragmentActivity.

● getSupportActionBar() (instead of getActionBar()).

● SherlockFragment and SherlockListFragment if you want menu related methods in fragments.

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Swiping between tabs

● Always allow the user to navigate between views by swiping left or right on the content area.

● Use ViewPager in conjunction with the ActionBar tabs

● Use fragments as tabs.

● http://developer.android.com/training/implementing-navigation/lateral.html

● Bug in Android system in landscape when swiping

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Drawers (Slide-out menu)

● New pattern becoming very popular for navigation.

● Lot of debate in the Android community about its behaviour.

● Popular library: SlidingMenu by Jeremy Feinstein. ( https://github.com/jfeinstein10/SlidingMenu )

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Drag. And drop. Any.do style

● Sorting list view with the help of drag and drop.

● Useful for todo list, favorites, music playlists, groceries list etc.

● Easy and intuitive rearranging of list items.

● Remember, Not every list needs drag and drop.

● App should sort for the user based on the usage patterns.

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Drag. And Drop.

● Let the users know they can drag and drop.● One way is by showing drag drop image.

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Swipe to dismiss

● As the name suggests, swipe to remove an item.

● Actions can also be mark completed, archive, etc.

● Used in android core UI (dismissing notifications).

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Swipe to dismiss

● Swipe from which side? Preferably both.● Not suitable for all apps.● Few downsides

– Difficult to discover.

– Swipe also used for navigation between tabs.

– Accidental swiping can happen. Should allow for recovering data.

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Implementation

● Library: DragSortListView by Carl A. Bauer.● Supports drag and drop sorting and swipe to

dismiss.● DragSortListView an extension of Android

ListView.● Allows both click to remove and fling to

remove.

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Example xml

<com.mobeta.android.dslv.DragSortListView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:dslv="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/org.blrdroid

.expenseapp" android:id="@android:id/list"

android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content"

---------------

dslv:track_drag_sort="false" dslv:use_default_controller="true" />

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Java code:

mDslv = getListView();

DragSortController controller = new DragSortController(mDslv);

mDslv.setFloatViewManager(controller);

mDslv.setOnTouchListener(controller);

mDslv.setDropListener(mDropListener);

mDslv.setRemoveListener(mRemoveListener);

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Finally,Questions?

@[email protected]