Android Gallery Control

In Android the Gallery control is a selection control that displays items in a horizontal gallery. the items in the gallery appear beside each other. they can appear separated by a pre-defined space.

remember that there is a sample demo application for the gallery to download at the end of the post

we can use the gallery to display String items using a simple ArrayAdapter.
so let's see how to create a gallery that displays the word "Hello" in several languages:

the layout:

<?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"
    >
<TextView  
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
    android:text="Gallery Demo"
    />
    <Gallery
    android:id="@+id/gallery"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:gravity="center_horizontal"
    android:spacing="100px"
    
    />
</LinearLayout>

and in the OnCreate method

@Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);
        gallery=(Gallery)findViewById(R.id.gallery);
        //String array holding the values
        String [] text=new String[]{"Hello","Hi","Alloha","Bonjour","Hallo","¡Hola"};
        //Array adapter to display our values in the gallery control
        ArrayAdapter arr=new ArrayAdapter(this, android.R.layout.simple_gallery_item, text);
gallery.setAdapter(arr);
}

the gallery will be like this

we can increse the spacing between the items by increasing the value of android:spacing property.

we can display a scroll bar to indicate the position of the current selected item in the gallery like this:

<Gallery
    android:id="@+id/gallery"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:gravity="center_horizontal"
    android:spacing="100px"
    android:scrollbars="horizontal"
    android:scrollbarFadeDuration="0"
    android:scrollX="100px"
    />

setting the android:scrollbarFadeDuration="0" makes the scroll bar always visible.

The android:scrollX property defines the initial scroll offset of the scroll bar which is the initial distance that the gallery is scrolled for.

Handling Gallery Events
since the gallery is a selction Control (a adapter view) so it can register a OnItemSelectedListener to handle the selection of items within the gallery.

final String [] text=new String[]{"Hello","Hi","Alloha","Bonjour","Hallo","¡Hola"};
gallery.setOnItemSelectedListener(new OnItemSelectedListener() {

   @Override
   public void onItemSelected(AdapterView parent, View view,
     int position, long id) {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    TextView txt=(TextView)findViewById(R.id.txt);
    txt.setText(text[position].toString());
   }

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

now the final step is to add two navigation buttons: Next and Previous to navigate throught the items in the gallery.
the layout is gonna be like this:

<?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"
    >
<TextView  
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
    android:text="Gallery Demo"
    android:id="@+id/txt"
    />
    <Gallery
    android:id="@+id/gallery"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:gravity="center_horizontal"
    android:spacing="100px"
    android:scrollbars="horizontal"
    android:scrollbarFadeDuration="0"
    android:scrollX="100px"
    />
    <LinearLayout
     android:layout_width="fill_parent"
     android:layout_height="wrap_content"
     android:orientation="horizontal"
     android:layout_marginTop="5px"
     >    
     <Button 
     android:text="Previous"
     android:layout_width="wrap_content"
     android:layout_height="wrap_content"
     android:id="@+id/btnPrev"
     android:onClick="onClick"
      />
      <Button 
     android:text="Next"
     android:layout_width="wrap_content"
     android:layout_height="wrap_content"
     android:id="@+id/btnNext"
     android:onClick="onClick"
      />

    </LinearLayout> 
    
</LinearLayout>

now in order to keep track of the index of the currently selected item we need to define two variables

//Variable to store the number of items in the gallery
 int ItemsInGallery=0;
 int CurrentIndex=0;

and the navigation buttons click handlers:

@Override
 public void onClick(View v) {
  // TODO Auto-generated method stub
  switch(v.getId())
  {
  case R.id.btnNext:
   //Increase the index
   CurrentIndex++;
   //if reached the end of the gallery, then start from the first item
   if(CurrentIndex>ItemsInGallery-1)
    CurrentIndex=0;
   gallery.setSelection(CurrentIndex,true);
   txt.setText(String.valueOf(CurrentIndex));
   break;
  case R.id.btnPrev:
   //Decrease the index
   CurrentIndex=CurrentIndex-1;
   //If reached the first item, then return to the last item in the gallery
   if(CurrentIndex<0)
    CurrentIndex=ItemsInGallery-1;
   gallery.setSelection(CurrentIndex,true);
   txt.setText(String.valueOf(CurrentIndex));
   break;
  }
 }

you can download a sample program from here