Are there built in dialogs for input for text, lists, etc... like builtin preference screens?

Question

In a preference fragment when you click on an item that is an EditTextPreference or ListPreference or others... it automatically opens a dialog box allowing input or selection depending on what you have it setup as.

If you are NOT using a PrefFrag.... but writing your own input screens, are there any built-in dialogs that can be called to do that or do we have to create our own from scratch?

Answer 1

You have to build them yourself, though most of the code can be easily copied from this article, with slight changes: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/dialogs.html

Choosing an item from a list is included there. For a text field, you would need to do something slightly different. Here is an example. Use it in an Activity:

    //First, set these variable to what you want
    String title = "ENTER A TITLE HERE";
    AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(this);
    builder.setTitle(title);

    // Set up the input
    final EditText input = new EditText(this);
    input.setInputType(InputType.TYPE_CLASS_TEXT);
    builder.setView(input);

    // Set up the buttons
    builder.setPositiveButton("OK", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
            String text = input.getText().toString();
            //text is the String the user inputted, use it for what you need here
        }
    });
    builder.setNegativeButton("Cancel", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int which) {
            //This means the user hit Cancel instead of OK
        }
    });

    AlertDialog dialog = builder.create();
    dialog.setCanceledOnTouchOutside(true);
    dialog.show();