Android Fragments

What are Fragments?

Introduced in Android 3.0 (API level 11), Fragments are a way to modularize your Activities. Fragment allow for sections of your application to be loaded within the same activity. Fragment also inherit the lifecycle of an Activity; when an activity is paused or when it is killed so does the Fragment.

As suggested by Google’s API Guides, Fragments should be designed as a reusable activity. One fragment should not be dependent in another fragment. So, fragments should not be manipulating other fragments.

Fragment can be used on older devices using a Support Library from 1.6 to 2.3.

Why Fragments ?

• Multiple components inside of a single activity.
• Allows for responsive design.
• Don’t have to load a whole activity hence performance increase

Fragment Default Subclasses:

• DialogFragment : Activity managed dialog.
• ListFragment : Displays a list of items that are managed by an adapter. ie: SimpleCusorAdapter
• PreferenceFragment : Displays a hierarchy of Preference object as list similar to PreferenceActivity.