How do I add a Fragment to an Activity with a programmatically created content view

Tony Wong picture Tony Wong · Mar 1, 2011 · Viewed 466k times · Source

I want to add a Fragment to an Activity that implements its layout programmatically. I looked over the Fragment documentation but there aren't many examples describing what I need. Here is the type of code I tried to write:

public class DebugExampleTwo extends Activity {

    private ExampleTwoFragment mFragment;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        FrameLayout frame = new FrameLayout(this);
        if (savedInstanceState == null) {
            mFragment = new ExampleTwoFragment();
            FragmentTransaction ft = getFragmentManager().beginTransaction();
            ft.add(frame.getId(), mFragment).commit();
        }

        setContentView(frame);
    }
}

...

public class ExampleTwoFragment extends Fragment {

    @Override
    public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, 
                             ViewGroup container, 
                             Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        Button button = new Button(getActivity());
        button.setText("Hello There");
        return button;
    }
}

This code compiles but crashes at start, probably because my FragmentTransaction.add() is incorrect. What is the correct way to do this?

Answer

Tony Wong picture Tony Wong · Mar 1, 2011

It turns out there's more than one problem with that code. A fragment cannot be declared that way, inside the same java file as the activity but not as a public inner class. The framework expects the fragment's constructor (with no parameters) to be public and visible. Moving the fragment into the Activity as an inner class, or creating a new java file for the fragment fixes that.

The second issue is that when you're adding a fragment this way, you must pass a reference to the fragment's containing view, and that view must have a custom id. Using the default id will crash the app. Here's the updated code:

public class DebugExampleTwo extends Activity {

    private static final int CONTENT_VIEW_ID = 10101010;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        FrameLayout frame = new FrameLayout(this);
        frame.setId(CONTENT_VIEW_ID);
        setContentView(frame, new LayoutParams(
            LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT, LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT));

        if (savedInstanceState == null) {
            Fragment newFragment = new DebugExampleTwoFragment();
            FragmentTransaction ft = getFragmentManager().beginTransaction();
            ft.add(CONTENT_VIEW_ID, newFragment).commit();
        }
    }

    public static class DebugExampleTwoFragment extends Fragment {
        @Override
        public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
                Bundle savedInstanceState) {
            EditText v = new EditText(getActivity());
            v.setText("Hello Fragment!");
            return v;
        }
    }
}