Selection Controls 2: The spinner Control

The spinner controls is similar to the ComboBox in C#. it displays a list to select from in a popup window so ot may become a better choice over ListView if you want to save space.

It works in a similar way to that of the the listView

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    >
    <Spinner
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:id="@+id/Spinner"
    />
</LinearLayout>

when you click on the spinner it popups like this:

To handle the selected item you can use do it like this:

final String [] items=new String[]{"Item1","Item2","Item3","Item4"};
        ArrayAdapter ad=new ArrayAdapter(this,android.R.layout.simple_spinner_item,items);
        ad.setDropDownViewResource(android.R.layout.simple_spinner_dropdown_item);
        Spinner spin=(Spinner)findViewById(R.id.Spinner);
        spin.setAdapter(ad);
        spin.setOnItemSelectedListener(new OnItemSelectedListener()
        {

   public void onItemSelected(AdapterView arg0, View arg1,
     int arg2, long arg3) {
    TextView txt=(TextView)findViewById(R.id.txt);
    TextView temp=(TextView)arg1;
    txt.setText(temp.getText());
    
   }

   public void onNothingSelected(AdapterView arg0) {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    
   }
        
        });

The above code displays the selected item text in the textview.

The parameters of the OnItemClick method are:


• Arg0:the Spinner, notice that it is of type AdapterView.

• Arg1: the view that represents the selected item, in this example it will be a TextView

• Arg2: the position of the selected item.

• Arg3: the id of the selected item.

and that's it for the Spinner Control.