Android: launch a custom Preference from a PreferenceActivity

Question

I would like to be able launch a 2nd Preference screen from my PreferenceActivity. And in the 2nd Preference screen I'd like to use a predefined layout from xml. So, I have two questions:

How do I use an xml layout as the layout view of a Preference? How do I add this custom preference to a PreferenceActivity such that launched when tapped?

Thank you

*EDIT in response to alibi

I am trying to launch an activity from a preference screen, by declaring the activity to be launched in xml. This causes this exception:

 04-01 19:04:37.962: ERROR/AndroidRuntime(8061): android.content.ActivityNotFoundException: Unable to find explicit activity class {com.me/CustomPrefScreen}; have you declared this activity in your AndroidManifest.xml?

*Another update. However, if I replace PrefrenceScreen in settings.xml with some extension of Preference, which overrides onClick() to launch CustomPrefScreen, then everything works fine.

Main preferences activity:

public class MyPreferences extends PreferenceActivity 
{
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) 
    {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.settings);
    }
}

settings.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<PreferenceScreen xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <PreferenceScreen  
        android:summary="my summary" 
        android:title="my title">
        <intent android:action="android.intent.action.MAIN"
                    android:targetPackage="com.me"
                    android:targetClass="CustomPrefScreen"/>
    </PreferenceScreen>

</PreferenceScreen>

mainfest file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.me"
    android:versionCode="1"
    android:versionName="1.0">
    <application 
        android:icon="@drawable/icon" 
        android:label="@string/app_name" 
        android:theme="@style/Theme.NoBackground">
        <activity 
            android:name=".MyApp"
            android:label="@string/app_name">
            <intent-filter>
                 <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
                 <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
             </intent-filter>
             </activity>
        <activity 
            android:name=".CustomPrefScreen"
            android:label="@string/app_name">
        </activity>
        <activity 
            android:name=".MyPreferences"
            android:label="@string/app_name">
        </activity>
    </application>
    <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="4" />
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" />
</manifest> 

Answer 1

One solution would be to extend a DialogPreference which allows the setting of a custom layout for the preference dialog. This way you have a preference listed and when you tap it, you get a dialog with your custom settings UI.

 <com.xyz.MyPreference 
           android:dialogLayout="@layout/yourlayout"
           android:dialogTitle="Dialog Title"
            android:dialogMessage="Dialog summary"
            android:key="preference_key"
            android:title="Preference Title"
            android:summary="Preference summary"
            android:defaultValue="Default Value" /> 

And the class

class MyPreference extends DialogPreference {
// along with constructors, you will want to override
    @Override
    protected void onBindDialogView(View view) {
        super.onBindDialogView(view);
        // view is your layout expanded and added to the dialog
            // find and hang on to your views here, add click listeners etc
            // basically things you would do in onCreate
        mTextView = (TextView)view.findViewById(R.Id.mytextview);
        }

        @Override
        protected void onDialogClosed(boolean positiveResult) {
           super.onDialogClosed(positiveResult);

            if (positiveResult) {
                // deal with persisting your values here
            }
        }
}

Obviously there are some other details, but this is the basic idea.