Navigation in Android(Explicit Intent)

An intent is an abstract description of an operation to be performed. It can be used with startActivity to launch an Activity, broadcastIntent to send it to any interested BroadcastReceiver components

An Intent provides a facility for performing late runtime binding between the code in different applications. Its most significant use is in the launching of activities, where it can be thought of as the glue between activities. It is basically a passive data structure holding an abstract description of an action to be performed.

There are two primary forms of intents you will use, They are:

• Explicit Intent
• Implicit Intent

Explicit Intent: After writing a single Activity, There comes a need  to navigate to another activity to perform another task . For this we use Explicit Inents.

ScreenShots:

activity_main.xml:

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"

    android:layout_width="match_parent"

    android:layout_height="match_parent"

    tools:context=".MainActivity" >

    <Button

        android:id="@+id/button1"

        android:layout_width="wrap_content"

        android:layout_height="wrap_content"

        android:layout_alignParentTop="true"

        android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"

        android:layout_marginTop="111dp"

        android:text="Call Act2"

        android:textSize="20dp" />

</RelativeLayout>

act2.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

    android:layout_width="match_parent"

    android:layout_height="match_parent"

    android:orientation="vertical" >

    <TextView

        android:id="@+id/textView1"

        android:layout_width="wrap_content"

        android:layout_height="wrap_content"

        android:text="This is Activity2"

        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge" />

    <Button

        android:id="@+id/button1back"

        android:layout_width="wrap_content"

        android:layout_height="wrap_content"

        android:text="Back" />

</LinearLayout>

MainActivity.java:

package com.ram.navigation;

import android.app.Activity;

import android.content.Intent;

import android.os.Bundle;

import android.view.View;

import android.view.View.OnClickListener;

import android.widget.Button;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

@Override

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

Button b = (Button)findViewById(R.id.button1);

b.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

@Override

public void onClick(View v) {

// TODO Auto-generated method stub

Intent in = new Intent(getApplicationContext(), Act2.class);

startActivity(in);

}

});

}

}

Act2.java:

package com.ram.navigation;

import android.app.Activity;

import android.os.Bundle;

import android.view.View;

import android.view.View.OnClickListener;

import android.widget.Button;

public class Act2 extends Activity {

@Override

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

// TODO Auto-generated method stub

super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

setContentView(R.layout.act2);

Button b = (Button)findViewById(R.id.button1back);

b.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

@Override

public void onClick(View arg0) {

// TODO Auto-generated method stub

//startActivity(new Intent(getApplicationContext(), MainActivity.class));

finish();

}

});

}

}

AndroidManifest.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

    package="com.ram.navigation"

    android:versionCode="1"

    android:versionName="1.0" >

    <uses-sdk

        android:minSdkVersion="8"

        android:targetSdkVersion="16" />

    <application

        android:allowBackup="true"

        android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"

        android:label="@string/app_name"

        android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >

        <activity

            android:name="com.ram.navigation.MainActivity"

            android:label="@string/app_name" >

            <intent-filter>

                <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

                <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />

            </intent-filter>

        </activity>

        <activity android:name="Act2"></activity>

    </application>

</manifest>