Android Custom Tab Bar

Question

I am looking to create a tabbed application similar to Iphone's tab-bar. There will be a bottom tab bar in my app which will go to certain screens.

(example of my page layout):
[tab1] Book List -> Book Details
[tab2] Settings1 -> Settings2
[tab3] About

I need each tab to have its own separate navigation stack. So if I go from Book List to Settings1, to Settings2 and press back, I expect to be on Settings1. From there if I press back, I expect to still stay on Settings1 because all the tabs are separate from each other.

1) I tried using Android's native Tab Host but the tabs are placed at the top... so I placed the tabs at the bottom in my XML layout.

Issue: However my phone's scroll wheel doesn't work properly: When I'm on the tab and I want to get to the above content, I scroll UP (GOOD). When I'm on the content and want to get to the below tab I have to scroll UP (BAD, you should scroll DOWN to get it).

Is it possible to scroll down to reach the tab and scroll up to go back to the content?

2) Does anybody know any other lesser-GPL API that can achieve this? Or must I start from scratch?

Thanks.

Rahul Rahul · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-18T15:13:15

You can use layout_gravity="bottom" in TabWidget to show tab bar in bottom like this:

<TabWidget 
    android:id="@android:id/tabs"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_gravity="bottom"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent">
</TabWidget>

Android Custom Tab Bar

1 Answers