Extend Your Knowledge
It is needless to say that it is generally not very common among actual real-world applications to consist of only one lonesome activity. Thus, in this second tutorial about Intents, we want to develop an application that has two activities. It shows the basic concept of creating multi activity applications and you can certainly use the knowledge you get from this tutorial to create applications with virtually any number of activities. So, if you are curious about how that is done, look no further, the tutorial is right here.
The Tutorial
You have any questions regarding this tutorial? You want to share your thoughts about this tutorial or this site in general? Please feel free to leave a comment below. It is much appreciated.
As always, you can find the project files for this tutorial here: Episode #11 Project Files (.zip)
- Episode #10 – Intents: An Introduction
- Episode #6 – Notification & Long Clicks
- Episode #3 – Using Buttons
- Episode #4 – Checkboxes & Complex Layouts
- Episode #5 – Using Radio Buttons
- Episode #8 – The Alert Dialog
- Episode #9 – Lists: Item Clicks
- Episode #2 – Create A New Project And Run It
- Episode #7 – Using Basic Lists
- Episode #1 – Getting Started!
Comments
Aleprex
04/17/2010 – 3:41 pmGood work! Thanks for another awesome video tutorial.
pedro
04/17/2010 – 4:43 pmVery nice tutorial ;)
Barry
04/22/2010 – 12:45 amAnother great tutorial. Are you going to be publishing tutorials on a more regular basis? this is a great series, Good Job! Keep them coming.
Mathias Reisch
04/22/2010 – 1:04 amThank you Barry. I will certainly try to publish tutorials much more frequently.
mhor
04/26/2010 – 5:16 amImpressive Mathias. You really are skillful in android development and as a teacher as well. Looking forward for more videos. Your site is on my bookmarks now and I visit this everyday to check for updates.
I hope there could be a tutorial on mobile to PC connection (USB or WIFI or Bluetooth). I would like to create a some kind of remote desktop application and a handler/manager for sms and calls on PC.
Ryan
04/28/2010 – 6:01 amYour work is pure genius; I’ve cherished every tutorial you’ve made.
I just started working on Android Development yesterday, and your tutorials are REALLY insightful.
I have this bookmarked, and I can’t wait for the next tutorial! I’m literally crazily excited about your tutorials. So don’t stop any time soon. ;)
Keep up the good work! :)
Ryan
04/30/2010 – 2:22 pmOne thing I’d like to remind you with guys though.
The OnClick Handler you can specify in the XML, making OnClick Listeners easier to do, only works in Android 1.6 and up.
Meaning, your Application won’t work on phones with lower versions.
If you plan on selling your Application, be sure to include which version of Android people are going to need to use it.
If you don’t, people might end up wasting their money, and their going to one star your Application with a nasty review.
Does the Android Market only list Applications that your phone can handle according to your Android Version?
Siddharth
05/04/2010 – 11:31 amHey Mathias. You would probably recognize me from an earlier comment in tutorial #8. That was solved by the way. :)
Anyway, I really enjoyed this tutorial a lot and have started working on a combination of this tutorial with a ListView (from tutorial #7) as an Intent. That, I might add, has been a stumbling block.
What works currently is the interface I created and as pointers to what functions the buttons will do, i am displaying toast messages.
Any ideas on how to go about it?
Eager for a reply
Cheers….
Avinash
05/04/2010 – 11:34 amgreat naraation. what verion of api is used ? awaiting ur next tutorial.
Mathias Reisch
05/04/2010 – 12:39 pmHey Siddharth. It is good to hear that you try to combine the techniques from several tutorials. However, you might want to wait for the upcoming tutorial on databases, as this one will basically feature an application with a ListView as a second Activity.
Mathias Reisch
05/04/2010 – 12:41 pmHey Avinash. This particular sample application uses the Android 2.1 platform (API Level 7). Cheers!
Siddharth
05/04/2010 – 8:07 pmHello Mathias.
Thanks for the heads-up…. ;)
However, I would like to continue experimenting while you work on the next tutorial.
After having learned so much from your tutorials and essentially YOU, it would be a great disservice to you if people like me weren’t to eventually start doing things by themselves. And I sincerely believe, that is the whole point of these incredible tutorials that you keep producing one after the other.
Having said that, I know I will need the next tutorial in a big way. :)
And I will wait for it like i have never before….
Cheers….
Siddharth Lele
endryha
05/05/2010 – 3:52 pmGood work
Oz
05/14/2010 – 8:06 pmThank you for your hard work Mathias! You’re videos are among the the best tutorials I’ve ever seen.
Rishabh
05/24/2010 – 1:02 amThis is the best dev video tutorial that I have seen. Really lucid, well structured and pragmatic approach. you’ve really taken the extra effort to teach and it shows in the quality.
Chris
05/25/2010 – 6:22 pmI love your tutorials – please keep up the community encouragement.
NHugo
05/29/2010 – 7:24 pmHow to pass the value set in the first view to the color picker on a second call?
Milford
05/30/2010 – 4:05 pmLove the videos, but could you please allow direct download or the ability to speed up playback? People often learn faster than an instructor talks and I like to play these types of videos at 1.5x speed.
Mathias Reisch
05/31/2010 – 12:20 pmHey Milford,
I’m afraid that is not possible because the hosting service for the videos does not support downloading or faster playback.
Ido
06/02/2010 – 11:31 amWhen will you cast the next tutorial ?
this is great!
Mathias Reisch
06/02/2010 – 8:56 pmA new tutorial will probably be out sometime next week.
pranay
06/08/2010 – 11:35 amexcellent tutorials.Could you please provide your email-id for some other queries in android other than these tutorials ?
Dionisis
06/26/2010 – 11:27 amHello Mathias. That was very cool!!
Do you have any apps of yours t show as? just to cheer up for you and to take some ideas!! :)
Thank you!!
asim
06/30/2010 – 11:33 pmhello,,
awesome tutorials.. great learning..
if you can do some tutorials on the camera functions (like taking picture, zoom in/zoom out, turn led on/off … ) would be a great help..
thanks in advance
Erik
07/02/2010 – 9:31 pmGreat video series!
Been quite a wile since last update…
Waiting for another one.
Thanks!
Viktor
07/05/2010 – 12:40 amAnother wonderful tutorial. Thanks from Sweden! :-)
It is possible to show how to deal with background images and icons etc? Would be appreciated!
Thanks
Cliff
07/05/2010 – 2:06 amExactly what I was looking to learn!
Appreciate the awesome tutorial and look forward to more – keep up the good work!
ratso
07/18/2010 – 6:27 amgreat tutorials, best i’ve seen on the internet. can’t wait until the next tutorial.
John
07/18/2010 – 11:21 amGreat Tutorials! All of them and i look forward to even more. If you are taking requests, Databases(which you mentioned in the least tutorial), and Gestures.
usetheforcehan
07/20/2010 – 1:29 pmWOW! You sure can teach! XD
You’ve help me a lot and i can’t wait for your Databases tutorial vid.
Btw, it seem my eclipse cannot show any of Javadoc documents. Do you know what the problem is? I already Install and uninstall eclipse, Android SDK and JDK multiple times and it still doesn’t show up. :(
Any help will be apreciated! :D
Allen
07/23/2010 – 4:54 pmWhere are the rest of the tutorials? It’s been several months — and Mathias Reisch is the best!
Peppe L-G
07/24/2010 – 11:29 amThese tutorials are the best tutorials I’ve ever watched, you’re really got talent for making them.
As many other, I’m looking forward to the next tutorial. You know, if you’re going to make one sooner or later, it’s better to make it sooner ;)
Thanks a lot!
Ajay Mishra
07/25/2010 – 10:16 pmThank u so much for this wonderful post. I loved it…
ratso
07/31/2010 – 10:00 pmYou’ve got the best tutorials I’ve seen on the internet; with your teachings behind me, I’ve written my first functional android application!
ECDiet2009
08/02/2010 – 1:07 pmThank t you very much for your excellent work. I wish you can publish more tutorials. Great Job.
ratso
08/03/2010 – 10:56 pmMathias, i have question.
After setting the color in your application, in the second activity, it takes you back to the original activity, BUT, when you access the second activity, the radio button you chose is no longer selected. Is there some way to make the second activity ‘remember’ it’s settings? I.E. How could I make the color picker remember the last selected color?
Mathias Reisch
08/04/2010 – 1:40 amHey ratso,
the putExtra() and getExtra methods should work both ways. So before calling the second activity, you could store some color related data into the intent object. Then call the second activity and evaluate the stored data and finally set the corresponding radio button. Try it!
Glenn T.
08/04/2010 – 2:07 amThank you very much for the excellent tutorials, Mathias! I just watched all your tutorials in one sitting and I’m ready for more. =)
You are a great teacher because you talk at a perfect pace, and you don’t assume that the viewer knows too much or too little about Android. My background is in .NET, so I appreciate the keyboard shortcuts and the side-tips you throw in there.
I look forward to seeing the next in the series. In the meantime, I’ll be telling my friends about your excellent website.
KK
08/04/2010 – 7:39 pmYou have done a great job.
Can you give a tutorial on DATABASE and MAP
rasto
08/06/2010 – 7:47 pm@Mathias Reisch
so then, the second activity should have an onActivityResult?
Mx
08/07/2010 – 8:56 amI just finished watching all of your tutorials and I just wanted to say thanks. I have been reading and watching different android resources trying to wrap my head around this stuff and your tutorials have just been incredibly, incredibly helpful. The best and clearest I have seen so far. I’m sad I’m at the end of them! Thanks again!
Musa
08/12/2010 – 8:48 pmGreat job Mathias!! Your tutorials have greatly eased the learning curve of android programming… Please keep it up!!
Dopre
08/22/2010 – 1:42 pmHi Mathias,
great tutorial. I watched all of them in a row and was able to develop my first app. All this in just two days. Amazing.
rahul
08/25/2010 – 7:54 pmThanks… but when will u come up with more…
Srinivas
09/02/2010 – 1:35 amThese are wonderful and well articulated. These vidoes supplement any book you read and reinforce the concepts. Looking forward for more.
ernie
09/02/2010 – 9:35 pmExcellent tutorial as usual but the author is busy and can not produce episodes frequently. For those who want to learn more about Android, Google University has free courses also.
http://sites.google.com/site/androidcoursearchive/labs/lab-1
Vanja
09/03/2010 – 2:51 pmI hope this is not the last one in this series of great (and rare) video tutorials on Android development.! Hoping to see one on databases you mentioned..Thank you!
maggie
09/06/2010 – 1:22 amLoved the tutorial and your teaching style. I just found this site. I watched this because I am trying to learn how to use intents. This was somewhat helpful. But I am trying to just pass a variable from ActivityClassA to ActivityClassB to be used there. Any suggestions? I used putExtra; but can’t quite get the syntax right on getExtra.
Prasanna
09/08/2010 – 5:09 amThank you Mathias, this tutorial series is awesome. Truly this is the best follow along video tutorial series i have used.
-Prasanna
Radu
09/14/2010 – 8:00 pmNext video?!