[android] What to use instead of "addPreferencesFromResource" in a PreferenceActivity?

I just noticed the fact that the method addPreferencesFromResource(int preferencesResId) is marked deprecated in Android's documentation (Reference Entry).

Unfortunately, no alternative method is provided in the method's description.

Which method should be used instead in order to connect a preferenceScreen.xml to the matching PreferenceActivity?

To add more information to the correct answer above, after reading an example from Android-er I found you can easily convert your preference activity into a preference fragment. If you have the following activity:

public class MyPreferenceActivity extends PreferenceActivity
{
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(final Bundle savedInstanceState)
    {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.my_preference_screen);
    }
}

The only changes you have to make is to create an internal fragment class, move the addPreferencesFromResources() into the fragment, and invoke the fragment from the activity, like this:

public class MyPreferenceActivity extends PreferenceActivity
{
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(final Bundle savedInstanceState)
    {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        getFragmentManager().beginTransaction().replace(android.R.id.content, new MyPreferenceFragment()).commit();
    }

    public static class MyPreferenceFragment extends PreferenceFragment
    {
        @Override
        public void onCreate(final Bundle savedInstanceState)
        {
            super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
            addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.my_preference_screen);
        }
    }
}

There may be other subtleties to making more complex preferences from fragments; if so, I hope someone notes them here.

Instead of using a PreferenceActivity to directly load preferences, use an AppCompatActivity or equivalent that loads a PreferenceFragmentCompat that loads your preferences. It's part of the support library (now Android Jetpack) and provides compatibility back to API 14.

In your build.gradle, add a dependency for the preference support library:

dependencies {
    // ...
    implementation "androidx.preference:preference:1.0.0-alpha1"
}

Note: We're going to assume you have your preferences XML already created.

For your activity, create a new activity class. If you're using material themes, you should extend an AppCompatActivity, but you can be flexible with this:

public class MyPreferencesActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.my_preferences_activity)
        if (savedInstanceState == null) {
            getSupportFragmentManager().beginTransaction()
                    .replace(R.id.fragment_container, MyPreferencesFragment())
                    .commitNow()
        }
    }
}

Now for the important part: create a fragment that loads your preferences from XML:

public class MyPreferencesFragment extends PreferenceFragmentCompat {

    @Override
    public void onCreatePreferences(Bundle savedInstanceState, String rootKey) {
        setPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.my_preferences_fragment); // Your preferences fragment
    }
}

For more information, read the Android Developers docs for PreferenceFragmentCompat.

Instead of exceptions, just use:

if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= 11)

and use

@SuppressLint("NewApi")

to suppress the warnings.

@Garret Wilson Thank you so much! As a noob to android coding, I've been stuck with the preferences incompatibility issue for so many hours, and I find it so disappointing they deprecated the use of some methods/approaches for new ones that aren't supported by the older APIs thus having to resort to all sorts of workarounds to make your app work in a wide range of devices. It's really frustrating!

Your class is great, for it allows you to keep working in new APIs wih preferences the way it used to be, but it's not backward compatible. Since I'm trying to reach a wide range of devices I tinkered with it a bit to make it work in pre API 11 devices as well as in newer APIs:

import android.annotation.TargetApi;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.preference.PreferenceActivity;
import android.preference.PreferenceFragment;

public class MyPrefsActivity extends PreferenceActivity
{
    private static int prefs=R.xml.myprefs;

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(final Bundle savedInstanceState)
    {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        try {
            getClass().getMethod("getFragmentManager");
            AddResourceApi11AndGreater();
        } catch (NoSuchMethodException e) { //Api < 11
            AddResourceApiLessThan11();
        }
    }

    @SuppressWarnings("deprecation")
    protected void AddResourceApiLessThan11()
    {
        addPreferencesFromResource(prefs);
    }

    @TargetApi(11)
    protected void AddResourceApi11AndGreater()
    {
        getFragmentManager().beginTransaction().replace(android.R.id.content,
                new PF()).commit();
    }

    @TargetApi(11)
    public static class PF extends PreferenceFragment
    {       
        @Override
        public void onCreate(final Bundle savedInstanceState)
        {
            super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
            addPreferencesFromResource(MyPrefsActivity.prefs); //outer class
            // private members seem to be visible for inner class, and
            // making it static made things so much easier
        }
    }
}

Tested in two emulators (2.2 and 4.2) with success.

Why my code looks so crappy:

I'm a noob to android coding, and I'm not the greatest java fan.

In order to avoid the deprecated warning and to force Eclipse to allow me to compile I had to resort to annotations, but these seem to affect only classes or methods, so I had to move the code onto two new methods to take advantage of this.

I wouldn't like having to write my xml resource id twice anytime I copy&paste the class for a new PreferenceActivity, so I created a new variable to store this value.

I hope this will be useful to somebody else.

P.S.: Sorry for my opinionated views, but when you come new and find such handicaps, you can't help it but to get frustrated!

My approach is very close to Garret Wilson's (thanks, I voted you up ;)

In addition it provides downward compatibility with Android < 3.

I just recognized that my solution is even closer to the one by Kevin Remo. It's just a wee bit cleaner (as it does not rely on the "expection" antipattern).

public class MyPreferenceActivity extends PreferenceActivity {
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

        if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT < Build.VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB) {
            onCreatePreferenceActivity();
        } else {
            onCreatePreferenceFragment();
        }
    }

    /**
     * Wraps legacy {@link #onCreate(Bundle)} code for Android < 3 (i.e. API lvl
     * < 11).
     */
    @SuppressWarnings("deprecation")
    private void onCreatePreferenceActivity() {
        addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.preferences);
    }

    /**
     * Wraps {@link #onCreate(Bundle)} code for Android >= 3 (i.e. API lvl >=
     * 11).
     */
    @TargetApi(Build.VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB)
    private void onCreatePreferenceFragment() {
        getFragmentManager().beginTransaction()
                .replace(android.R.id.content, new MyPreferenceFragment ())
                .commit();
    }
}

For a "real" (but more complex) example see NusicPreferencesActivity and NusicPreferencesFragment.