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Tabbed Layouts

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Overview

Tabs are a popular user interface pattern in mobile applications because of their simplicity and usability. They provide a consistent, easy way to navigate between various screens in an application. Android has several API's for tabbed interfaces:

  • ActionBar – This is part of a new set of API's that was introduced in Android 3.0 (API level 11) with goal of providing a consistent navigation and view-switching interface. It has been back ported to Android 2.2 (API level 8) with the Android Support Library v7.

  • PagerTabStrip – Indicates the current, next, and previous pages of a ViewPager. ViewPager is available only via Android Support Library v4. For more information about PagerTabStrip, see ViewPager.

  • Toolbar – Toolbar is a newer and more flexible action bar component that replaces ActionBar. Toolbar is available in Android 5.0 Lollipop or later, and it is also available for older versions of Android via the Android Support Library v7 NuGet package. Toolbar is currently the recommended action bar component to use in Android apps. For more information, see Toolbar.