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GORDON COLLEGE
Olongapo City Sports Complex, Donor St., East Tapinac, Olongapo City 2200
www.gordoncollege.edu.ph

Module 7: Event Handling in Android Studio

I. INTRODUCTION
In creating a mobile application it is very important to establish an interaction
between the user and your application. This is the means of getting information
from the user and initiates the call for different functions included in the
application.

Module 7 will discusses Events and how it is being handled in Android Studio.

II. LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After the completion of this module, the students are expected to;
• Understand Events in Android Application
• Define Event Listeners
• Define Event Handlers
• Define Touch and Focus
• Examples of Different Event Handling

III. TOPICS AND KEY CONCEPTS

A. Definition of Event

In Android Application event refers to an action that can be done by the user
within the interface known as Activity.

It is very important in collecting information from the user. These events can
also be used to trigger and initiate functionalities after the user press, touch or
even type something on the user interface of an Android Application.

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On Android, there's more than one way to intercept the events from a user's
interaction with your application. When considering events within your user
interface, the approach is to capture the events from the specific View object
that the user interacts with. The View class provides the means to do so.

Within the various View classes that you'll use to compose your layout, you may
notice several public callback methods that look useful for UI events. These
methods are called by the Android framework when the respective action occurs
on that object. For instance, when a View (such as a Button) is touched, the
onTouchEvent() method is called on that object. However, in order to intercept
this, you must extend the class and override the method. However, extending
every View object in order to handle such an event would not be practical. This
is why the View class also contains a collection of nested interfaces with
callbacks that you can much more easily define. These interfaces, called event
listeners, are your ticket to capturing the user interaction with your UI.

While you will more commonly use the event listeners to listen for user
interaction, there may come a time when you do want to extend a View class, in
order to build a custom component. Perhaps you want to extend the Button
class to make something more fancy. In this case, you'll be able to define the
default event behaviors for your class using the class event handlers.

B. Android Event Management Concept

• Event Listeners − An event listener is an interface in the View class that
contains a single callback method. These methods will be called by the
Android framework when the View to which the listener has been
registered is triggered by user interaction with the item in the UI.

• Event Listeners Registration − Event Registration is the process by

which an Event Handler gets registered with an Event Listener so that
the handler is called when the Event Listener fires the event.

• Event Handlers − When an event happens and we have registered an

event listener for the event, the event listener calls the Event Handlers,
which is the method that actually handles the event.

C. Event Listeners
An event listener is an interface in the View class that contains a single callback
method. These methods will be called by the Android framework when the View
to which the listener has been registered is triggered by user interaction with the
item in the UI.

Included in the event listener interfaces are the following callback methods:

C.1. onClick() - From View.OnClickListener. This is called when the user either
touches the item (when in touch mode), or focuses upon the item with the
navigation-keys or trackball and presses the suitable "enter" key or presses
down on the trackball.

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C.2. onLongClick() - From View.OnLongClickListener. This is called when the

user either touches and holds the item (when in touch mode), or focuses upon
the item with the navigation-keys or trackball and presses and holds the
suitable "enter" key or presses and holds down on the trackball (for one second).

C.3. onFocusChange() - From View.OnFocusChangeListener. This is called

when the user navigates onto or away from the item, using the navigation-keys
or trackball.

C.4. onKey() - From View.OnKeyListener. This is called when the user is

focused on the item and presses or releases a hardware key on the device.

C.5. onTouch() - From View.OnTouchListener. This is called when the user

performs an action qualified as a touch event, including a press, a release, or
any movement gesture on the screen (within the bounds of the item).

C.6. onCreateContextMenu() -From View.OnCreateContextMenuListener. This

is called when a Context Menu is being built (as the result of a sustained "long
click").

These methods are the sole inhabitants of their respective interface. To define
one of these methods and handle your events, implement the nested interface in
your Activity or define it as an anonymous class. Then, pass an instance of your
implementation to the respective View.set...Listener() method. (E.g., call
setOnClickListener() and pass it your implementation of the OnClickListener.)

You may also find it more convenient to implement OnClickListener as a part of

your Activity. This will avoid the extra class load and object allocation. For
example:

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Notice that the onClick() callback in the above example has no return value, but
some other event listener methods must return a boolean. The reason depends
on the event. For the few that do, here's why:

• onLongClick() - This returns a boolean to indicate whether you have

consumed the event and it should not be carried further. That is, return
true to indicate that you have handled the event and it should stop here;
return false if you have not handled it and/or the event should continue
to any other on-click listeners.

• onKey() - This returns a boolean to indicate whether you have consumed

the event and it should not be carried further. That is, return true to
indicate that you have handled the event and it should stop here; return
false if you have not handled it and/or the event should continue to any
other on-key listeners.

• onTouch() - This returns a boolean to indicate whether your listener

consumes this event. The important thing is that this event can have
multiple actions that follow each other. So, if you return false when the
down action event is received, you indicate that you have not consumed
the event and are also not interested in subsequent actions from this
event. Thus, you will not be called for any other actions within the event,
such as a finger gesture, or the eventual up action event.

Remember that hardware key events are always delivered to the View
currently in focus. They are dispatched starting from the top of the View
hierarchy, and then down, until they reach the appropriate destination.
If your View (or a child of your View) currently has focus, then you can
see the event travel through the dispatchKeyEvent() method. As an
alternative to capturing key events through your View, you can also

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receive all of the events inside your Activity with onKeyDown() and
onKeyUp().

Also, when thinking about text input for your application, remember that
many devices only have software input methods. Such methods are not
required to be key-based; some may use voice input, handwriting, and so
on. Even if an input method presents a keyboard-like interface, it will
generally not trigger the onKeyDown() family of events. You should never
build a UI that requires specific key presses to be controlled unless you
want to limit your application to devices with a hardware keyboard. In
particular, do not rely on these methods to validate input when the user
presses the return key; instead, use actions like IME_ACTION_DONE to
signal the input method how your application expects to react, so it may
change its UI in a meaningful way. Avoid assumptions about how a
software input method should work and just trust it to supply already
formatted text to your application.

D. Event Listeners Registration

Event Registration is the process by which an Event Handler gets registered with
an Event Listener so that the handler is called when the Event Listener fires the
event. Though there are several tricky ways to register your event listener for
any event, but I'm going to list down only top 3 ways, out of which you can use
any of them based on the situation.

• Using an Anonymous Inner Class

• Activity class implements the Listener interface.

• Using Layout file activity_main.xml to specify event handler directly.

E. Event Handlers
If you're building a custom component from View, then you'll be able to define
several callback methods used as default event handlers. In Custom View
Components, there are some of the common callbacks used for event handling,
including:
• onKeyDown(int, KeyEvent) - Called when a new key event occurs.
• onKeyUp(int, KeyEvent) - Called when a key up event occurs.
• onTrackballEvent(MotionEvent) - Called when a trackball motion event
occurs.
• onTouchEvent(MotionEvent) - Called when a touch screen motion
event occurs.
• onFocusChanged(boolean, int, Rect) - Called when the view gains or
loses focus.

There are some other methods that you should be aware of, which are not part
of the View class, but can directly impact the way you're able to handle events.

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So, when managing more complex events inside a layout, consider these other
methods:
• Activity.dispatchTouchEvent(MotionEvent) - This allows your Activity
to intercept all touch events before they are dispatched to the window.

• ViewGroup.onInterceptTouchEvent(MotionEvent) - This allows a

ViewGroup to watch events as they are dispatched to child Views.

• ViewParent.requestDisallowInterceptTouchEvent(boolean) - Call this

upon a parent View to indicate that it should not intercept touch events
with onInterceptTouchEvent(MotionEvent).

F. Touchmode
When a user is navigating a user interface with directional keys or a trackball, it
is necessary to give focus to actionable items (like buttons) so the user can see
what will accept input. If the device has touch capabilities, however, and the
user begins interacting with the interface by touching it, then it is no longer
necessary to highlight items, or give focus to a particular View. Thus, there is a
mode for interaction named "touch mode."

For a touch-capable device, once the user touches the screen, the device will
enter touch mode. From this point onward, only Views for which
isFocusableInTouchMode() is true will be focusable, such as text editing widgets.
Other Views that are touchable, like buttons, will not take focus when touched;
they will simply fire their on-click listeners when pressed.

Any time a user hits a directional key or scrolls with a trackball, the device will
exit touch mode, and find a view to take focus. Now, the user may resume
interacting with the user interface without touching the screen.

The touch mode state is maintained throughout the entire system (all windows
and activities). To query the current state, you can call isInTouchMode() to see
whether the device is currently in touch mode.

G. Handling Focus
The framework will handle routine focus movement in response to user input.
This includes changing the focus as Views are removed or hidden, or as new
Views become available. Views indicate their willingness to take focus through
the isFocusable() method. To change whether a View can take focus, call
setFocusable(). When in touch mode, you may query whether a View allows
focus with isFocusableInTouchMode(). You can change this with
setFocusableInTouchMode().

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Focus movement is based on an algorithm which finds the nearest neighbor in

a given direction. In rare cases, the default algorithm may not match the
intended behavior of the developer. In these situations, you can provide explicit
overrides with the following XML attributes in the layout file: nextFocusDown,
nextFocusLeft, nextFocusRight, and nextFocusUp. Add one of these attributes
to the View from which the focus is leaving. Define the value of the attribute to
be the id of the View to which focus should be given. For example:

<LinearLayout
android:orientation="vertical"
... >
<Button android:id="@+id/top"
android:nextFocusUp="@+id/bottom"
... />
<Button android:id="@+id/bottom"
android:nextFocusDown="@+id/top"
... />
</LinearLayout>

Ordinarily, in this vertical layout, navigating up from the first Button would not
go anywhere, nor would navigating down from the second Button. Now that the
top Button has defined the bottom one as the nextFocusUp (and vice versa), the
navigation focus will cycle from top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top.

If you'd like to declare a View as focusable in your UI (when it is traditionally

not), add the android:focusable XML attribute to the View, in your layout
declaration. Set the value true. You can also declare a View as focusable while in
Touch Mode with android:focusableInTouchMode.

To request a particular View to take focus, call requestFocus().

To listen for focus events (be notified when a View receives or loses focus), use
onFocusChange(), as discussed in the Event listeners section.

IV. TEACHING AND LEARNING MATERIALS RESOURCE

Materials are being taken from the following;
• Online Resources

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V. LEARNING TASK

Instruction: Answer the following questions briefly, your

answer will be evaluated using the following rubric.

Holistic Rubric
Exceeding Meeting Approaching Below None
(10) (8) (6) (2) (0)
Substantial,
Content Clarity
specific, and/or
The presence of ideas Sufficient
illustrative
developed through developed Limited content Superficial
content No content
facts, examples, content with with inadequate and/or
demonstrating or answer
illustrations, details, adequate elaboration or minimal
strong provided.
opinions, statistics, elaboration or explanation content
development and
reasons, and/or explanation.
sophisticated
explanations.
ideas.

1. Provide one example of implementation of LongClick(). When do you think

you can properly use this in your application?

_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________

2. Provide one example of implementation of onFocusChanged().When do you

think you can properly use this in your application?

_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________

Score Sheet
Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Total Score

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VI. REFERENCES

Online Resources
• https://www.tutorialspoint.com/android/android_event_handling.htm

• https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/ui-events

• https://www.tutlane.com/tutorial/android/android-input-events-event-
listeners-event-handling

• https://javatutorial.net/event-handing-android

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