Showing activity with custom dialog in Android

Question

I am developing an Android app. In my app, I want to show data in dialog. Basically, I want to show an Activity in dialog when a button is clicked. I know how to show Activity as dialog. Here is how I am currently showing activity as dialog.

I set Activity in AndroidManifest like this

<activity
    android:configChanges="orientation|screenSize"
    android:name=".MakeCommentActivity"
    android:label="Comment"
    android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light.Dialog" >
    <intent-filter>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
        <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
    </intent-filter>
</activity>

So when I open activity. It show as dialog as below.

As you can see in screenshot, the problem with above code is I cannot fully control over design. I mean I cannot set the background color of dialog as I want. I will change depending on the device. I cannot change the theme of dialog. Besides, I cannot remove the title of dialog and so on.

Like in above screenshot, I will have fully control over design. I can add icon in title. I can set whatever theme I want and so on.

So what I can think is to use an alert dialog with custom view. But if I do it, code will not be clean and neat because all the logic and code will be places in the parent activity. Not in different Activity.

So my question is how can I open an Activity as dialog that can be fully customized in design? If cannot fully customized, using alert dialog with custom view is a good idea? Because I will show comments like in Facebook. User can make comment as well.

Answer 1

What you are actually doing is that you are only changing the theme of your activity. The best way to achieve what you want is by creating a custom view Dialog:

//Here you inflate your design (xml layout)
View view = getLayoutInflater().inflate(R.layout.your_view, null);
//Here you can get any component of that layout (ex: textView)
TextView yourTextView = view.findViewById(R.id.your_textview_id);
AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(this);
    builder.setView(view);
    AlertDialog alert = builder.create();
    alert.show();

This way you can control it as you wish

Answer 2

More often than not these seemingly beautiful alert dialogs are not alertdialogs at all but an activity having a transparent background. Onclicklisteners are duly placed(for example clicking the transparent background will close the activity). Therefore designing these activities is easier compared to customizing an alertdialog

Answer 3

I had a working Activity with theme type Dialog. Its easily customizable and yes the code becomes cleaner when you put the login in another class.

So I would like to suggest you something. First thing is to remove the intent-filter. I don't actually know why the intent-filter is used, but anyway, doesn't look very necessary.

<activity
    android:configChanges="orientation|screenSize"
    android:name=".MakeCommentActivity"
    android:label="Comment"
    android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Light.Dialog" >
</activity>

The layout of your Activity which is a dialog, is important. You need to set the layout_height and layout_width to match_parent to check if you can get the customized behaviour.

The other thing you mentioned about the label of the Activity which can be changed easily by setTitle from the onCreate function of your Activity.

Here's my DialogActivity for example

public class DialogActivity extends Activity {

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

        setTitle("My custom title");
    }
}

And the layout used here is

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:background="@android:color/white"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical">

    <View
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_margin="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
        android:background="@android:color/black"
        android:layout_height="200dp" />

    <View
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="400dp"
        android:background="@android:color/black" />

</LinearLayout>

Answer 4

You can use AlertDialog basically android AlertDialog can be used to display the dialog message with OK and Cancel buttons. It can be used to interrupt and ask the user about his/her choice to continue or discontinue.

Android AlertDialog is composed of three regions: title, content area and action buttons. you can leave action buttons if you not need like in your case.

AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(this);  
//Setting message manually and performing action on button click 

        builder.setMessage("Do you want to close this application ?")  
            .setCancelable(false)  
            .setPositiveButton("Yes", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {  
                public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int id) {  
                finish();  
                }  
            })  
            .setNegativeButton("No", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {  
                public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int id) {  
                //  Action for 'NO' Button  
                dialog.cancel();  
             }  
            });  

       //Creating dialog box  
        AlertDialog alert = builder.create();  
        //Setting the title manually  
        alert.setTitle("AlertDialogExample");  
        alert.show();  

This will show output in this way.

Answer 5

Its better to use AlertDialog. Because if you done it by theme, then for different version devices its appearance will changed.