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androidmulti-selectpreferenceactivity

MultiSelectListPreference example


I am having a hard time trying to find a good example of the MultiSelectListPreference provided in the Android API. I have seen many references to this blog, and tho this is the end result I desire, I don't want to create a class for each multi-select preference I want to implement. Ultimately I want to see the preferences xml for a simple multi-select dialog (which i will populate the values for dynamically), as well to the call to addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.preferences);

Currently, I have:

<MultiSelectListPreference
    android:defaultValue=""
    android:enabled="true"
    android:entries="@array/pref_default_entries"
    android:entryValues="@array/pref_default_values"
    android:key="TargetList"
    android:persistent="true"
    android:summary="@string/TargetSummary"
    android:title="@string/TargetTitle" />

and when I try to call addPreferencesFromResource in my Activities onCreate call I am getting the following error:

06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052): FATAL EXCEPTION: main
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052): java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.tracker/com.tracker.TrackerActivity}: android.view.InflateException: Binary XML file line #37: Error inflating class java.lang.reflect.Constructor
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:1818)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:1834)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.app.ActivityThread.access$500(ActivityThread.java:122)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1027)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:132)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4126)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:491)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:844)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:602)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052): Caused by: android.view.InflateException: Binary XML file line #37: Error inflating class java.lang.reflect.Constructor
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.preference.GenericInflater.createItem(GenericInflater.java:397)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.preference.GenericInflater.onCreateItem(GenericInflater.java:417)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.preference.GenericInflater.createItemFromTag(GenericInflater.java:428)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.preference.GenericInflater.rInflate(GenericInflater.java:481)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.preference.GenericInflater.inflate(GenericInflater.java:326)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.preference.GenericInflater.inflate(GenericInflater.java:263)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.preference.PreferenceManager.inflateFromResource(PreferenceManager.java:269)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.preference.PreferenceActivity.addPreferencesFromResource(PreferenceActivity.java:1366)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at com.tracker.TrackerActivity.onCreate(TrackerActivity.java:30)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1050)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:1782)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     ... 11 more
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052): Caused by: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.constructNative(Native Method)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:416)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.preference.GenericInflater.createItem(GenericInflater.java:383)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     ... 21 more
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052): Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.content.res.AssetManager.getResourceTextArray(AssetManager.java:215)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.content.res.Resources.getTextArray(Resources.java:435)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.content.res.TypedArray.getTextArray(TypedArray.java:628)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.preference.MultiSelectListPreference.onGetDefaultValue(MultiSelectListPreference.java:210)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.preference.Preference.<init>(Preference.java:257)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.preference.DialogPreference.<init>(DialogPreference.java:69)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.preference.DialogPreference.<init>(DialogPreference.java:90)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     at android.preference.MultiSelectListPreference.<init>(MultiSelectListPreference.java:49)
06-18 13:59:30.690: E/AndroidRuntime(6052):     ... 24 more

I look forward to your reply!


Solution

  • Sigrist is correct, to solve the initial error you are seeing. It needs default values provided, even if its empty. This helped me in that I want to provide values at RUNTIME, but not mess with the full implementation.

    See this code for how I provide values at runtime, while not having to handle the full implementation.

    public class CalendarListPreference extends MultiSelectListPreference {
    
    ContentResolver cr;
    Cursor cursor;
    String[] projection = new String[] {CalendarContract.Calendars.NAME, CalendarContract.Calendars.CALENDAR_DISPLAY_NAME};
    String selection = "(" + CalendarContract.Calendars.VISIBLE + " = ?)";
    String[] selectionArgs = new String[] { "1" };
    
    public CalendarListPreference(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
        super(context, attrs);
    
        List<CharSequence> entries = new ArrayList<CharSequence>();
        List<CharSequence> entriesValues = new ArrayList<CharSequence>();
    
        cr = context.getContentResolver();
        cursor = cr.query(CalendarContract.Calendars.CONTENT_URI, projection, selection, selectionArgs, null);
    
        while (cursor.moveToNext()) {
            String name = cursor.getString(0);
            String displayName = cursor.getString(1);
    
            entries.add(name);
            entriesValues.add(displayName);
        }
    
        setEntries(entries.toArray(new CharSequence[]{}));
        setEntryValues(entriesValues.toArray(new CharSequence[]{}));
    }
    }
    

    In my strings.xml

    <string-array name="pref_calendar_list_default">
    </string-array>
    

    In my preferences.xml

    <com.mynameistodd.autovolume.CalendarListPreference
    android:defaultValue="@array/pref_calendar_list_default"
    android:key="@string/pref_calendar_list_key"
    android:summary="@string/pref_calendar_list_summary"
    android:title="@string/pref_calendar_list_title"
    android:dependency="@string/pref_calendar_enabled_key"/>
    

    I know this is a bit of an old question, but it helped me, so here is my answer!