How do I design a custom Android control and use it in Xml?

Question

I understand how to create a custom Android control, and I believe I understand how to pull attributes for it from the Xml layout. I don't know, however, how to get any children elements from it.

Here's a visual example of what I'm trying to accomplish:

public class Menu extends LinearLayout
{
    // Custom Code
}

public class MenuItem extends Button
{
    // Custom Code
}

<!-- Layout -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Menu>
    <MenuItem/>
    <MenuItem/>
</Menu>

When my Menu is created, how do I get references to the two MenuItems?

Answer 1

You should use an android:id to do that. If you will not know how many childs you will have:

LinearLayout extends ViewGroup, so you can use getChildAt() and getChildCount() to get those views.

Answer 2

for accesing any control (custom or system ) an id is a must. by specifying an id you give it a unique identity. Using this id you can get a reference to that control.