Picker Views android

In the previous article, you saw the various basic views such as the TextView, EditText, Button, and how you can use them in your Android applications. In this article, we shall continue our exploration of another three categories of views - Picker views, List views, and Display views. The views discussed include:

* TimePicker view
* DatePicker view
* ListView view
* Spinner view
* Gallery view
* ImageView
* ImageSwitcher view
* GridView view
Selecting date and time is one of the very common tasks you need to perform in a mobile application. Android supports this functionality through the TimePicker and DatePicker views.

TimePicker View

The TimePicker view allows users to select a time of the day, in either 24 hour mode or AM/PM mode.
Add a new file to the res/layout folder and name it as datetimepicker.xml and populate it with the following element:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    >
 
    <TimePicker
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" />            
 
</LinearLayout>

Add a new class to the src/net.learn2develop.AndroidViews folder and name it as DateTimePickerExample.java. Populate it as follows:

package net.learn2develop.AndroidViews;
 
import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
 
public class DateTimePickerExample extends Activity 
{
    @Override  
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) 
    {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.datetimepicker);        
    }    
}

Modify the AndroidManifest.xml file to register the new activity:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
      package="net.learn2develop.AndroidViews"
      android:versionCode="1"
      android:versionName="1.0.0">
    <application android:icon="@drawable/icon" android:label="@string/app_name">
 
        <activity android:name=".ViewsActivity"
                  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=".DateTimePickerExample"
                  android:label="@string/app_name" />
 
    </application>
</manifest>

Modify the ViewsActivity.java file to start the DateTimePickerExample activity:

package net.learn2develop.AndroidViews;
 
import android.app.Activity;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.Bundle;
 
public class ViewsActivity extends Activity 
{
    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) 
    {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);         
 
        startActivity(new Intent(this, DateTimePickerExample.class));
 
    }
}

Press F11 to debug the application on the Android emulator. Figure 1 shows the TimePicker view in action. You can use the numeric keypad on the device to change the hour and minute and click on the AM button to toggle between AM and PM.

Figure 1: The TimePicker view in action