[android] Same Navigation Drawer in different Activities

I made a working navigation drawer like it's shown in the tutorial on the developer.android.com website. But now, I want to use one Navigation Drawer, i created in the NavigationDrawer.class for multiple Activities in my Application.

My question is, if anyone here can make a little Tutorial, which explains, how to use one Navigation drawer for multiple Activities.

I read it first at this Answer Android Navigation Drawer on multiple Activities

but it didn't work on my Project

public class NavigationDrawer extends Activity {
public DrawerLayout drawerLayout;
public ListView drawerList;
private ActionBarDrawerToggle drawerToggle;

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    drawerLayout = (DrawerLayout) findViewById(R.id.drawer_layout);
    drawerToggle = new ActionBarDrawerToggle((Activity) this, drawerLayout, R.drawable.ic_drawer, 0, 0) {

        public void onDrawerClosed(View view) {
            getActionBar().setTitle(R.string.app_name);
        }

        public void onDrawerOpened(View drawerView) {
            getActionBar().setTitle(R.string.menu);
        }
    };
    drawerLayout.setDrawerListener(drawerToggle);

    getActionBar().setDisplayHomeAsUpEnabled(true);
    getActionBar().setHomeButtonEnabled(true);

    listItems = getResources().getStringArray(R.array.layers_array);
    drawerList = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.left_drawer);
    drawerList.setAdapter(new ArrayAdapter<String>(this, R.layout.drawer_list_item, android.R.id.text,
            listItems));
    
    drawerList.setOnItemClickListener(new OnItemClickListener() {
        @Override
        public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> arg0, View arg1, int pos, long arg3) {
            drawerClickEvent(pos);
        }
    });
}

@Override
public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {

    if (drawerToggle.onOptionsItemSelected(item)) {
        return true;
    }
    return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);

}

@Override
protected void onPostCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onPostCreate(savedInstanceState);
    drawerToggle.syncState();
}

@Override
public void onConfigurationChanged(Configuration newConfig) {
    super.onConfigurationChanged(newConfig);
    drawerToggle.onConfigurationChanged(newConfig);
}
}

In this Activity i want to have the Navigation Drawer so I extends 'NavigationDrawer' and in some other Activities i want to User the Same Navigation drawer

  public class SampleActivity extends NavigationDrawer {...}

Easiest way to reuse a common Navigation drawer among a group of activities

app_base_layout.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout
    android:id="@+id/drawer_layout"
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">

    <FrameLayout
        android:id="@+id/view_stub"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent">

    </FrameLayout>

    <android.support.design.widget.NavigationView
        android:id="@+id/navigation_view"
        android:layout_width="240dp"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:layout_gravity="start"
        app:menu="@menu/menu_test"
        />
</android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout>

AppBaseActivity.java

/*
* This is a simple and easy approach to reuse the same 
* navigation drawer on your other activities. Just create
* a base layout that conains a DrawerLayout, the 
* navigation drawer and a FrameLayout to hold your
* content view. All you have to do is to extend your 
* activities from this class to set that navigation 
* drawer. Happy hacking :)
* P.S: You don't need to declare this Activity in the 
* AndroidManifest.xml. This is just a base class.
*/
import android.content.Intent;
import android.content.res.Configuration;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.design.widget.NavigationView;
import android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout;
import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarDrawerToggle;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.view.LayoutInflater;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuItem;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;
import android.widget.FrameLayout;

public abstract class AppBaseActivity extends AppCompatActivity implements MenuItem.OnMenuItemClickListener {
    private FrameLayout view_stub; //This is the framelayout to keep your content view
    private NavigationView navigation_view; // The new navigation view from Android Design Library. Can inflate menu resources. Easy
    private DrawerLayout mDrawerLayout;
    private ActionBarDrawerToggle mDrawerToggle;
    private Menu drawerMenu;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        super.setContentView(R.layout.app_base_layout);// The base layout that contains your navigation drawer.
        view_stub = (FrameLayout) findViewById(R.id.view_stub);
        navigation_view = (NavigationView) findViewById(R.id.navigation_view);
        mDrawerLayout = (DrawerLayout) findViewById(R.id.drawer_layout);
        mDrawerToggle = new ActionBarDrawerToggle(this, mDrawerLayout, 0, 0);
        mDrawerLayout.setDrawerListener(mDrawerToggle);
        getSupportActionBar().setDisplayHomeAsUpEnabled(true);

        drawerMenu = navigation_view.getMenu();
        for(int i = 0; i < drawerMenu.size(); i++) {
          drawerMenu.getItem(i).setOnMenuItemClickListener(this);
        }
        // and so on...
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPostCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onPostCreate(savedInstanceState);
        mDrawerToggle.syncState();
    }

    @Override
    public void onConfigurationChanged(Configuration newConfig) {
        super.onConfigurationChanged(newConfig);
        mDrawerToggle.onConfigurationChanged(newConfig);
    }

    /* Override all setContentView methods to put the content view to the FrameLayout view_stub
     * so that, we can make other activity implementations looks like normal activity subclasses.
     */
    @Override
    public void setContentView(int layoutResID) {
        if (view_stub != null) {
            LayoutInflater inflater = (LayoutInflater) getSystemService(LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
            ViewGroup.LayoutParams lp = new ViewGroup.LayoutParams(
                    ViewGroup.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT,
                    ViewGroup.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT);
            View stubView = inflater.inflate(layoutResID, view_stub, false);
            view_stub.addView(stubView, lp);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void setContentView(View view) {
        if (view_stub != null) {
            ViewGroup.LayoutParams lp = new ViewGroup.LayoutParams(
                    ViewGroup.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT,
                    ViewGroup.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT);
            view_stub.addView(view, lp);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void setContentView(View view, ViewGroup.LayoutParams params) {
        if (view_stub != null) {
            view_stub.addView(view, params);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
        // Pass the event to ActionBarDrawerToggle, if it returns
        // true, then it has handled the app icon touch event
        if (mDrawerToggle.onOptionsItemSelected(item)) {
            return true;
        }
        // Handle your other action bar items...

        return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onMenuItemClick(MenuItem item) {
        switch (item.getItemId()) {
            case R.id.item1:
                // handle it
                break;
            case R.id.item2:
                // do whatever
                break;
            // and so on...
        }
        return false;
    }
}

My answer is just a conceptual one without any source code. It might be useful for some readers like myself to understand.

It depends on your initial approach on how you architecture your app. There are basically two approaches.

1. You create one activity (base activity) and all the other views and screens will be fragments. That base activity contains the implementation for Drawer and Coordinator Layouts. It is actually my preferred way of doing because having small self-contained fragments will make app development easier and smoother.

2. If you have started your app development with activities, one for each screen , then you will probably create base activity, and all other activity extends from it. The base activity will contain the code for drawer and coordinator implementation. Any activity that needs drawer implementation can extend from base activity.

I would personally prefer avoiding to use fragments and activities mixed without any organizing. That makes the development more difficult and get you stuck eventually. If you have done it, refactor your code.

Create Navigation drawer in your MainActivity using fragment.
Initialize the Navigation Drawer in MainActivity
now in all other activities you want to use same Navigation Drawer put DrawerLayout as base and fragment as navigation drawer. Just set android:name in your fragment pointing to your fragment Java file. You won't need to initialize the fragment in other Activities.
You can access Nav Drawer by swipe in other activities like in Google Play Store app

So this answer is a few years late but someone may appreciate it. Android has given us a new widget that makes using one navigation drawer with several activities easier.

android.support.design.widget.NavigationView is modular and has its own layout in the menu folder. The way that you use it is to wrap xml layouts the following way:

1. Root Layout is a android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout that contains two children: an <include ... /> for the layout that is being wrapped (see 2) and a android.support.design.widget.NavigationView.

   <android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout
       xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
       xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
       xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
       android:id="@+id/drawer_layout"
       android:layout_width="match_parent"
       android:layout_height="match_parent"
       android:fitsSystemWindows="true"
       tools:openDrawer="start">
   
   <include
       layout="@layout/app_bar_main"
       android:layout_width="match_parent"
       android:layout_height="match_parent" />
   
   <android.support.design.widget.NavigationView
       android:id="@+id/nav_view"
       android:layout_width="wrap_content"
       android:layout_height="match_parent"
       android:layout_gravity="start"
       android:fitsSystemWindows="true"
       app:headerLayout="@layout/nav_header_main"
       app:menu="@menu/activity_main_drawer" />
   

nav_header_main is just a LinearLayout with orientation = vertical for the header of your Navigation Drawar.

activity_main_drawer is a menu xml in your res/menu directory. It can contain items and groups of your choice. If you use the AndroidStudio Gallery the wizard will make a basic one for you and you can see what your options are.

2. App bar layout is usually now a android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout and this will include two children: a android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout (which contains a android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar) and an <include ... > for your actual content (see 3).

   <android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout
       xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
       xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
       xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
       android:layout_width="match_parent"
       android:layout_height="match_parent"
       tools:context="yourpackage.MainActivity">
   
    <android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout
       android:layout_width="match_parent"
       android:layout_height="wrap_content"
       android:theme="@style/AppTheme.AppBarOverlay">
   
       <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
           android:id="@+id/toolbar"
           android:layout_width="match_parent"
           android:layout_height="?attr/actionBarSize"
           android:background="?attr/colorPrimary"
           app:popupTheme="@style/AppTheme.PopupOverlay" />
   
   </android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout>
   
   <include layout="@layout/content_main" />
   

3. Content layout can be whatever layout you want. This is the layout that contains the main content of the activity (not including the navigation drawer or app bar).

Now, the cool thing about all of this is that you can wrap each activity in these two layouts but have your NavigationView (see step 1) always point to activity_main_drawer (or whatever). This means that you will have the same(*) Navigation Drawer on all activities.

• They won't be the same instance of NavigationView but, to be fair, that wasn't possible even with the BaseActivity solution outlined above.

update this code in baseactivity. and dont forget to include drawer_list_header in your activity xml.

super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR_OVERLAY);
setContentView(R.layout.drawer_list_header);

and dont use request() in your activity. but still the drawer is not visible on clicking image..and by dragging it will visible without list items. i tried a lot but no success. need some workouts for this...

My suggestion is: do not use activities at all, instead use fragments, and replace them in the container (Linear Layout for example) where you show your first fragment.

The code is available in Android Developer Tutorials, you just have to customize.

http://developer.android.com/training/implementing-navigation/nav-drawer.html

It is advisable that you should use more and more fragments in your application, and there should be only four basic activities local to your application, that you mention in your AndroidManifest.xml apart from the external ones (FacebookActivity for example):

1. SplashActivity: uses no fragment, and uses FullScreen theme.

2. LoginSignUpActivity: Do not require NavigationDrawer at all, and no back button as well, so simply use the normal toolbar, but at the least, 3 or 4 fragments will be required. Uses no-action-bar theme

3. HomeActivity or DashBoard Activity: Uses no-action-bar theme. Here you require Navigation drawer, also all the screens that follow will be fragments or nested fragments, till the leaf view, with the shared drawer. All the settings, user profile and etc. will be here as fragments, in this activity. The fragments here will not be added to the back stack and will be opened from the drawer menu items. In the case of fragments that require back button instead of the drawer, there is a fourth kind of activity below.

4. Activity without drawer. This activity has a back button on top and the fragments inside will be sharing the same action-bar. These fragments will be added to the back-stack, as there will be a navigation history.

[ For further guidance see: https://stackoverflow.com/a/51100507/787399 ]

Happy Coding !!

I've found the best implementation. It's in the Google I/O 2014 app.

They use the same approach as Kevin's. If you can abstract yourself from all unneeded stuff in I/O app, you could extract everything you need and it is assured by Google that it's a correct usage of navigation drawer pattern. Each activity optionally has a DrawerLayout as its main layout. The interesting part is how the navigation to other screens is done. It is implemented in BaseActivity like this:

private void goToNavDrawerItem(int item) {
        Intent intent;
        switch (item) {
            case NAVDRAWER_ITEM_MY_SCHEDULE:
                intent = new Intent(this, MyScheduleActivity.class);
                startActivity(intent);
                finish();
                break;

This differs from the common way of replacing current fragment by a fragment transaction. But the user doesn't spot a visual difference.

With @Kevin van Mierlo 's answer, you are also capable of implementing several drawers. For instance, the default menu located on the left side (start), and a further optional menu, located on the right side, which is only shown when determinate fragments are loaded.

I've been able to do that.

package xxxxxx;



import android.app.SearchManager;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.widget.SearchView;
import android.support.design.widget.NavigationView;
import android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout;
import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarDrawerToggle;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuItem;
import android.view.View;
import android.widget.Toast;


public class loginhome extends AppCompatActivity {
    private Toolbar toolbar;
    private NavigationView navigationView;
    private DrawerLayout drawerLayout;

    // Make sure to be using android.support.v7.app.ActionBarDrawerToggle version.
    // The android.support.v4.app.ActionBarDrawerToggle has been deprecated.
    private ActionBarDrawerToggle drawerToggle;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.loginhome);

        // Initializing Toolbar and setting it as the actionbar
        toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
        setSupportActionBar(toolbar);


        //Initializing NavigationView


        navigationView = (NavigationView) findViewById(R.id.nav_view);

        //Setting Navigation View Item Selected Listener to handle the item click of the navigation menu
        navigationView.setNavigationItemSelectedListener(new NavigationView.OnNavigationItemSelectedListener() {

            // This method will trigger on item Click of navigation menu

            public boolean onNavigationItemSelected(MenuItem menuItem) {


                //Checking if the item is in checked state or not, if not make it in checked state
                if(menuItem.isChecked()) menuItem.setChecked(false);
                else menuItem.setChecked(true);

                //Closing drawer on item click
                drawerLayout.closeDrawers();

                //Check to see which item was being clicked and perform appropriate action
                switch (menuItem.getItemId()){


                    //Replacing the main content with ContentFragment Which is our Inbox View;
                    case R.id.nav_first_fragment:
                        Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(),"First fragment",Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
                         FirstFragment fragment = new FirstFragment();
                        android.support.v4.app.FragmentTransaction fragmentTransaction = getSupportFragmentManager().beginTransaction();
                        fragmentTransaction.replace(R.id.frame,fragment);
                        fragmentTransaction.commit();
                        return true;

                    // For rest of the options we just show a toast on click
                    case R.id.nav_second_fragment:
                        Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(),"Second fragment",Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
                        SecondFragment fragment2 = new SecondFragment();
                        android.support.v4.app.FragmentTransaction fragmentTransaction2 = getSupportFragmentManager().beginTransaction();
                        fragmentTransaction2.replace(R.id.frame,fragment2);
                        fragmentTransaction2.commit();
                        return true;

                    default:
                        Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(),"Somethings Wrong",Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
                        return true;

                }
            }
        });

        // Initializing Drawer Layout and ActionBarToggle
        drawerLayout = (DrawerLayout) findViewById(R.id.drawer_layout);
        ActionBarDrawerToggle actionBarDrawerToggle = new ActionBarDrawerToggle(this,drawerLayout,toolbar,R.string.drawer_open, R.string.drawer_close){

            @Override
            public void onDrawerClosed(View drawerView) {
                // Code here will be triggered once the drawer closes as we dont want anything to happen so we leave this blank
                super.onDrawerClosed(drawerView);
            }

            @Override
            public void onDrawerOpened(View drawerView) {
                // Code here will be triggered once the drawer open as we dont want anything to happen so we leave this blank

                super.onDrawerOpened(drawerView);
            }
        };

        //Setting the actionbarToggle to drawer layout
        drawerLayout.setDrawerListener(actionBarDrawerToggle);

        //calling sync state is necessay or else your hamburger icon wont show up
        actionBarDrawerToggle.syncState();







    }

use this for your toolbar.xml

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

    <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:background="@color/colorPrimary"
        android:elevation="4dp"
        android:id="@+id/toolbar"
        android:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark"


        >

    </android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar>

use this for navigation header if want to use

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="192dp"
    android:background="?attr/colorPrimaryDark"
    android:padding="16dp"
    android:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:gravity="bottom">
    <LinearLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="56dp"
        android:id="@+id/navhead"
        android:orientation="vertical"
        android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
        android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
        android:layout_alignParentStart="true">

        <TextView
            android:id="@+id/name"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_marginLeft="16dp"
            android:textColor="#ffffff"
            android:text="tanya"
            android:textSize="14sp"
            android:textStyle="bold"

            />

        <TextView
            android:id="@+id/email"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:textColor="#ffffff"
            android:layout_marginLeft="16dp"
            android:layout_marginTop="5dp"
            android:text="tanya.com"
            android:textSize="14sp"
            android:textStyle="normal"

            />
    </LinearLayout>
    <de.hdodenhof.circleimageview.CircleImageView
        android:layout_width="70dp"
        android:layout_height="70dp"
        android:layout_below="@+id/imageView"
        android:layout_marginTop="15dp"

        android:src="@drawable/face"
        android:id="@+id/circleView"
        />



</RelativeLayout>

I do it in Kotlin like this:

open class BaseAppCompatActivity : AppCompatActivity(), NavigationView.OnNavigationItemSelectedListener {

protected lateinit var drawerLayout: DrawerLayout
protected lateinit var navigationView: NavigationView
@Inject
lateinit var loginService: LoginService

override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
    Log.d("BaseAppCompatActivity", "onCreate()")
    App.getComponent().inject(this)
    drawerLayout = findViewById(R.id.drawer_layout) as DrawerLayout

    val toolbar = findViewById(R.id.toolbar) as Toolbar
    setSupportActionBar(toolbar)

    navigationView = findViewById(R.id.nav_view) as NavigationView
    navigationView.setNavigationItemSelectedListener(this)

    val toggle = ActionBarDrawerToggle(this, drawerLayout, toolbar, R.string.navigation_drawer_open, R.string.navigation_drawer_close)

    drawerLayout.addDrawerListener(toggle)
    toggle.syncState()
    toggle.isDrawerIndicatorEnabled = true

    val navigationViewHeaderView = navigationView.getHeaderView(0)
    navigationViewHeaderView.login_txt.text = SharedKey.username
}
private inline fun <reified T: Activity> launch():Boolean{
    if(this is T) return closeDrawer()
    val intent = Intent(applicationContext, T::class.java)
    startActivity(intent)
    finish()
    return true
}

private fun closeDrawer(): Boolean {
    drawerLayout.closeDrawer(GravityCompat.START)
    return true
}
override fun onNavigationItemSelected(item: MenuItem): Boolean {
    val id = item.itemId

    when (id) {
        R.id.action_tasks -> {
            return launch<TasksActivity>()
        }
        R.id.action_contacts -> {
            return launch<ContactActivity>()
        }
        R.id.action_logout -> {
            createExitDialog(loginService, this)
        }
    }
    return false
}
}

Activities for drawer must inherit this BaseAppCompatActivity, call super.onCreate after content is set (actually, can be moved to some init method) and have corresponding elements for ids in their layout

For anyone else looking to do what the original poster is asking, please consider to use fragments instead the way Kevin said. Here is an excellent tutorial on how to do that:

https://github.com/codepath/android_guides/wiki/Fragment-Navigation-Drawer

If you choose to instead use activities instead of fragments you are going to run into the problem of the nav drawer being re-created every time you navigate to a new activity. This results in an ugly/slow rendering of the nav drawer each time.