Add Tabs to Android Application using the layout/main.xml file

I am beginning with Android and I'd like to add tabs to my existing application.

Right now I just have one activity with the lay开发者_如何学Pythonout defined in the XML file. I would now like to add other tabs.

I have looked it up and found http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/views/hello-tabwidget.html on the Android developer site; however, that doesn't use XML for defining the layout of the tabs.

So, how can I easily add tabs using the XML file only for the layout?

Thanks in advance.

I have looked it up and found http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/views/hello-tabwidget.html on the Android developer site; however, that doesn't use XML for defining the layout of the tabs.

Yes, it does. See step #4.

UPDATE

Google reorganized their documentation and got rid of this tutorial. You can see the use of XML for defining the tabs in TabWidget in this sample project.

I've run into a situation where the TabWidget layout didn't do what I needed, so I faked it up with a ViewFlipper and a RadioGroup. That way, I could define the content of the tabs (each view in the ViewFlipper) using includes (like in Farray's answer).

The tabs themselves were the RadioButtons in the RadioGroup - you just have an OnCheckedChangeListener in your code and set the ViewFlipper's displayed child accordingly. You can define the RadioButton layout in XML (with text or images or whatever).

Here's a pseudo-layout where the tabs use images:

<LinearLayout>
    <ViewFlipper android:id="@+id/viewFlipper">
        <include android:id="@+id/tab1Content" layout="@layout/tab1Layout" />
        <include android:id="@+id/tab2Content" layout="@layout/tab2Layout" />
        <include android:id="@+id/tab3Content" layout="@layout/tab3Layout" />
    </ViewFlipper>
    <LinearLayout>
        <RadioGroup android:id="@+id/radgroup1" android:orientation="horizontal">
          <RadioButton android:id="@+id/rad1" android:button="@drawable/tab1" />
          <RadioButton android:id="@+id/rad2" android:button="@drawable/tab2" />
          <RadioButton android:id="@+id/rad3" android:button="@drawable/tab3" />
        </RadioGroup>
    </LinearLayout>
</LinearLayout>

And here's the listener:

    private OnCheckedChangeListener onRadioButtonCheckedChanged = new OnCheckedChangeListener(){
    public void onCheckedChanged(RadioGroup group, int checkedId)
    {
        switch(checkedId)
        {
            case(R.id.rad2):
                viewFlipper.setDisplayedChild(1);
            break;
            case(R.id.rad3):
                viewFlipper.setDisplayedChild(2);
            break;
            default:
                viewFlipper.setDisplayedChild(0);
            break;
        }
    }
};

The TabWidget implementation is pretty rigid -- you don't have much control over layout.

If you want to create your own custom tabs, your best bet is to create a custom layout and call it from the activities that you want to have these "tabs". You can call reusable layouts in XML with <include layout="@layout/my_tab_layout" /> and then write your own initialization code in a reusable class.