Learning Android Application Development - Day 3

Hope you all are doing well, first of all thank you so much for reading my previous blogs:

• Learning Android Application Development - Day 1
• Learning Android Application Development Day - 2

Today we will learn about the Activity in Android, how to switch from one activity to another activity, what the activity life cycle is, how to create activity in android and how to destroy an activity.

What is Activity

Activity in the android is a service provided by the android to handle different pages, basically activity is the portion of application which shows on the front end, and the UI shows the Activity so that you can place all your Widgets on it. An activity is the single screen in android. It is like a window or frame of Java.

What is Activity Life Cycle

Every activity has its own life cycle that whenever any activity is created it has to be destroyed as well after completing the works. Every new activity should be registered in the menifest.xml file as I have explained in the first part of article series: Learning Android Application Development - Day 1

The Activity life cycle has 7 stages or methods and these are mentioned below -

1. onCreate ( ): This method is called in onCreate() method when an activity starts.
2. onStart ( ): This method is called when it becomes visible to user.
3. onResume( ): This method is called when the activity starts interacting with user.
4. onPause( ): This method is called when user wants to switch to another activity.
5. onStop( ): This method is called when activity no longer visible to user.
6. onRestart( ): This method is called when user wants to restart the activity.
7. onDestroy( ): This method is called before the activity is destroyed.

Activity Life Cycle



How to create Activity in MainActivity.java.

MainActivity.java

package com.example.activitylifecycle;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.util.Log;
import android.view.Menu;
public class MainActivity extends Activity
{@
    Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
    {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
        Log.d("my_lifecycle", "onCreate Method is invoked");
    }@
    Override
    protected void onStart()
    {
        super.onStart();
        Log.d("my_lifecycle ", "onStart Method is invoked");
    }@
    Override
    protected void onResume()
    {
        super.onResume();
        Log.d("my_lifecycle ", "onResume Method is invoked");
    }@
    Override
    protected void onPause()
    {
        super.onPause();
        Log.d("my_lifecycle ", "onPause Method is invoked");
    }@
    Override
    protected void onStop()
    {
        super.onStop();
        Log.d("my_lifecycle ", "onStop Method is invoked");
    }@
    Override
    protected void onRestart()
    {
        super.onRestart();
        Log.d("my_lifecycle ", "onRestart Method is invoked");
    }@
    Override
    protected void onDestroy()
    {
        super.onDestroy();
        Log.d("my_lifecycle ", "onDestroy Method is invoked");
    }
}

I am using here Log Tag so that you can see in your logcat that how and when the activity is created, stopped and destroyed.

Small example on button click to go to another activity

MainActivty.java

package com.example.lucifer.myapplication;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Button;


public class MainActivity extends Activity {

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
        Button b = (Button) findViewById(R.id.second_activity_button);
        b.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
      @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {

                Intent intent = new Intent(MainActivity.this,SecondActivity.class);
                startActivity(intent);
            }
        });
    }
}

activity_main.xml

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/layout_login"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_gravity="top">

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/heading_main"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:text="MainActivity"
        android:textSize="20sp"
        android:textStyle="bold"
        android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
        android:layout_marginTop="10dp"
        />

    <LinearLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_marginTop="60dp"
        android:orientation="horizontal"
        android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal" >

        <Button
            android:id="@+id/second_activity_button"
            android:layout_gravity="center"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_marginLeft="140dp"
            android:text="Go to Second" />


    </LinearLayout>

</LinearLayout>

SecondActivty.java

package com.example.lucifer.myapplication;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;

public class SecondActivity extends Activity {

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

second_activtiy.xml

<?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="match_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:gravity="center">
    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:id="@+id/my_text"
        android:gravity="center"
        android:text="Second Activity"
        android:textSize="40dp"/>

</LinearLayout>

AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.example.lucifer.myapplication">

    <application
        android:allowBackup="true"
        android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
        android:label="@string/app_name"
        android:supportsRtl="true"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
        <activity android:name="com.example.lucifer.myapplication.MainActivity">
            <intent-filter>
                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
            </intent-filter>
        </activity>
        <activity android:name=".SecondActivity">

        </activity>
    </application>

</manifest>

Result

Thank you so much for reading.

Hope you all are enjoying learning android. Next time I will be back with something new about Android.

Keep learning, Happy coding!