Spinner View ( Drop down list )

Spinners provide a quick way to select one value from a set. In the default state, a spinner shows its currently selected value. Touching the spinner displays a dropdown menu with all other available values, from which the user can select a new one.

In Android, you can use “android.widget.Spinner” class to render a dropdown box selection list.

In this tutorial we show you how to do the following tasks :

1. Render a Spinner in XML, and load the selection items via XML file also.
2. Render another Spinner in XML, and load the selection items via code dynamically.
3. Attach a listener on Spinner, fire when user select a value in Spinner.
4. Render and attach a listener on a normal button, fire when user click on it, and it will display selected value of Spinner.

File : res/values/strings.xml

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

<resources>

    <string name="app_name">Spinner Drop down list</string>

    <string name="hello_world">Hello world!</string>

    <string name="menu_settings">Settings</string>

    

    <string name="versions_prompt">Choose a Version</string>

    <string-array name="versions_arrays">

        <item>Cupcake</item>

        <item>Donut</item>

        <item>Eclairs</item>

        <item>Froyo</item>

        <item>Gingerbread</item>

        <item>Honeybee</item>

        <item>Icecream sandwich</item>

        <item>Jellybean</item>

        <item>Kitkat</item>

    </string-array>

</resources>

File : res/layout/activity_spinner.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"

    android:padding="20dp"

    tools:context=".SpinnerActivity" >

    <Spinner

        android:id="@+id/spinner1"

        android:layout_width="match_parent"

        android:layout_height="wrap_content"

        android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"

        android:layout_alignParentTop="true"

        android:entries="@array/versions_arrays"

        android:prompt="@string/versions_prompt" />

    <Spinner

        android:id="@+id/spinner2"

        android:layout_width="match_parent"

        android:layout_height="wrap_content"

        android:layout_alignLeft="@+id/spinner1"

        android:layout_below="@+id/spinner1"

        android:layout_marginTop="20dp" />

    <Button

        android:id="@+id/btnSubmit"

        android:layout_width="wrap_content"

        android:layout_height="wrap_content"

        android:layout_alignLeft="@+id/spinner2"

        android:layout_below="@+id/spinner2"

        android:layout_marginTop="20dp"

        android:text="Submit" />

</RelativeLayout>

File : SpinnerActivity.java

package com.mindmedia.spinner;

import java.util.ArrayList;

import java.util.List;

import android.app.Activity;

import android.os.Bundle;

import android.view.View;

import android.view.View.OnClickListener;

import android.widget.AdapterView;

import android.widget.AdapterView.OnItemSelectedListener;

import android.widget.ArrayAdapter;

import android.widget.Button;

import android.widget.Spinner;

import android.widget.Toast;

public class SpinnerActivity extends Activity {

private Spinner spinner1, spinner2;

private Button btnSubmit;

@Override

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

setContentView(R.layout.activity_spinner);

addItemsOnSpinner2();

addListenerOnButton();

addListenerOnSpinnerItemSelection();

}

// add items into spinner dynamically

public void addItemsOnSpinner2() {

spinner2 = (Spinner) findViewById(R.id.spinner2);

List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();

list.add("Android");

list.add("Iphone");

list.add("Blackberry");

list.add("Windows");

ArrayAdapter<String> dataAdapter = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this,

android.R.layout.simple_spinner_item, list);

dataAdapter

.setDropDownViewResource(android.R.layout.simple_spinner_dropdown_item);

spinner2.setAdapter(dataAdapter);

}

public void addListenerOnSpinnerItemSelection() {

spinner1 = (Spinner) findViewById(R.id.spinner1);

spinner1.setOnItemSelectedListener(new CustomOnItemSelectedListener());

}

// get the selected dropdown list value

public void addListenerOnButton() {

spinner1 = (Spinner) findViewById(R.id.spinner1);

spinner2 = (Spinner) findViewById(R.id.spinner2);

btnSubmit = (Button) findViewById(R.id.btnSubmit);

btnSubmit.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

@Override

public void onClick(View v) {

Toast.makeText(

SpinnerActivity.this,

"Spinner 1 : "

+ String.valueOf(spinner1.getSelectedItem())

+ "\nSpinner 2 : "

+ String.valueOf(spinner2.getSelectedItem()),

Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

}

});

}

public class CustomOnItemSelectedListener implements OnItemSelectedListener {

public void onItemSelected(AdapterView<?> parent, View view, int pos,

long id) {

Toast.makeText(parent.getContext(),

"Version : " + parent.getItemAtPosition(pos).toString(),

Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

}

@Override

public void onNothingSelected(AdapterView<?> arg0) {

// TODO Auto-generated method stub

}

}

}

Output :