How do I implement swiping between tabs on Android?

Question

One of the key design recommendations in Android 4.0 for tabs is to allow swiping between them where appropriate. This behavior enables users to swipe horizontally across the selected tab's contents to navigate to adjacent tabs, without needed to directly interact with the tabs themselves.

How can this be implemented?

Solution 1

NOTE: This is an excerpt from the Android Training class Implementing Effective Navigation.

---

To implement this (in Android 3.0 or above), you can use a ViewPager in conjunction with the ActionBar tabs API.

Upon observing the current page changing, select the corresponding tab. You can set up this behavior using an ViewPager.OnPageChangeListener in your activity's onCreate() method:

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    ...
    mViewPager.setOnPageChangeListener(
            new ViewPager.SimpleOnPageChangeListener() {
                @Override
                public void onPageSelected(int position) {
                    // When swiping between pages, select the
                    // corresponding tab.
                    getActionBar().setSelectedNavigationItem(position);
                }
            });
    ...
}

And upon selecting a tab, switch to the corresponding page in the ViewPager. To do this, add an ActionBar.TabListener to your tab when creating it using the newTab() method:

actionBar.newTab()
        ...
        .setTabListener(new ActionBar.TabListener() {
            public void onTabSelected(ActionBar.Tab tab,
                    FragmentTransaction ft) {
                // When the tab is selected, switch to the
                // corresponding page in the ViewPager.
                mViewPager.setCurrentItem(tab.getPosition());
            }
            ...
        }));

Solution 2

If you are targeting APIs below Android 3.0, you cannot use Roman's solution above.

I wrote a blog post here about how to accomplish the same thing with ActionBarSherlock if anyone is interested.

Comments

[user289463]

Hi Roman, Please work out an example that implements ant adapter to implement swiping multi-pane layouts containing multiple dynamically created/replaceable fragments. Challenges: - The FragmentManager uses a resource ID to add Fragments; IDs must be unique across pages (you can't specify a ViewGroup instance as a container) - Container views must exist before FragmentManager attempts to restore fragments - Retained instances vs orientation change bug #1:NullPointerException around when FragmentManager attempts to save Fragment state; #2:NullPointerException around LoaderInfo.onLoadComplete

[Roman Nurik]

You should ask this as a new question.

[ccpizza]

It is possible to use the solution for earlier versions if you add the android compability support library developer.android.com/tools/extras/support-library.html. With the latest Eclipse ADT plugin it is as easy as right-clicking the project and picking Android Tools > Add Support Library. The project will have to be built against API 14 or higher (i.e Android 4+) while using a manifest with e.g. ` <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="7">` to run on android 2.1.

[Name is Nilay]

@JesperB-What if I need to implement Swipe among tabs in my TabHost for android app targeting APIs below Android 2.3.3 and without using ActionBarSherlock..?? Can u suggest me something for that..??

[Name is Nilay]

@JesperB-Actually I have already made the app with tabview working perfectly fine...I just need to update the feature of Swipe !!

[Mukesh Bhojwani]

Hi ccpizza, why did you say "The project will have to be built against API 14 or higher (i.e Android 4+)" is this necessary?

[Maxim]

Strange things happen if you add menu icons to actionbar and use ViewPager that way...

[Markus Junginger]

Don't forget: if you use API level 13 and above, you should go for android-support-v13.jar. It contains android.support.v13.app.FragmentPagerAdapter, which does not rely on support Fragments and Activities, but can be used with the "real" thing.