Switch Preference - Handling both onPreferenceChange and onPreferenceClick

Question 1

After searching for hours more I came across a couple posts that will be helpful to others in this situation.

This one was the solution I opted for given my problem: How do I create one Preference with an EditTextPreference and a Togglebutton?

It's a very detailed answer and is very helpful in understanding preferences.

The other post I came across was this one: http://xgouchet.fr/android/index.php?article4/master-on-off-preferences-with-ice-cream-sandwich

It will give you pretty much the same look and feel as the one above, but requires more work and because of my requirements wouldn't work for me.

Question 2

I have been working with the same issue for ages now and you can go about it two ways.

Implementing a switchpreference with custom actions for every event:

forevercrashed made some good points. I tried follow them, but for me they didn't do it. I bet they work, but I needed more functionallity in an easier way. Xgouchet (second Link) uses Headers and custom xml layouts which uses custom placements and measurements (height, witdth, padding etc.). I needed a solution without altering Googles built in auto-generated layout.

The super easy and powerful way: implement your own SwitchPreference! Just make a class extend SwitchPreference and then implement/override like so:

public class AutoUploadSwitchPreference extends SwitchPreference {
public AutoUploadSwitchPreference(Context context) {
    super(context);
}
public AutoUploadSwitchPreference(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
    super(context, attrs);
}
public AutoUploadSwitchPreference(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle) {
    super(context, attrs, defStyle);
}

@Override
protected void onClick() {
    //super.onClick(); THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART!
}

By overriding onClick() and commenting out / deleting super.onClick() makes the SwitchPreference NOT call callChangeListener(Object newValue). Now you can click the preference and nothing happens, not until you want it to. (One bug that would occur otherwise was having multiple calls to onPreferenceChange in the fragment)

Now! To make things happen: Here is the structure I have used.

Create a SettingsActivity
- In it make sure you fetch preferences, resources etc.
in onCreate() in your Activity - launch a PreferenceFragment
- This needs to be a custom class extending PreferenceFragment, see how here : PreferenceFragment
In your custom Fragment, get hold of your custom-preference. You can use findPreference("custom_switch_key").
- add an OnPreferenceChangeListener on the preference
- I personally make my fragment implement the listener and pass this as argument.
- The return statement is important. This is what makes the actual change in the switch. If you return true the switch will change into the newValue. If you return false, it will not. If you use return false; you can change the value with setChecked(true|false) on the switchpreference.
when you implement onPreferenceChange(Preference preference, Object newValue) you can add whatever functionality you want from pressing the switch-slider only
the functionality from clicking the preference can be done in three ways:
- Implement the onClick() further in the custom SwitchPreference class
- Implement the method onPreferenceTreeClick(PreferenceScreen preferenceScreen, Preference preference) in the fragment
- Implement an onPreferenceClickListener like you did for the ChangeListener.

Sorry if this is a long post. It is my first and I have been through so many stackoverflow-pages about this and no one was accurate, just wanted to get it right ;)

Question 3

i think you are asking about a feature that doesn't exist.

however , since the preference activity uses a listView , you can use some tricks to customize it and handle it however you wish .

here's a post i've made about customizing it , based on this website . what i've asked there is how to add a listView , but i didn't know that a preference activity actually uses a listview .