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Style Any Activity as an Alert Dialog in Android

4.60/5 (5 votes)
19 Jul 2013CPOL 44.9K  
Simple trick that I find very useful

Introduction

This simple trick shows how to change the theme of any activity in Android to take on a dialog form.

Using the Code

Normal activities in Android take up the full-screen form. For example, here is a screenshot from my app "Periodic Table Pro":

and here is the corresponding activity declaration in the AndroidManifest.xml file:

XML
<activity
android:name="com.aman.periodictablepro.HelperActivity"
android:label="@string/helper_activity_name" > 
</activity>

However, there is small trick that can be done to make any activity take on a Dialog form. For example, if we change the activity declaration in the AndroidManifest.xml file to this:

XML
<activity
android:name="com.aman.periodictablepro.HelperActivity"
android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Dialog"
android:label="@string/helper_activity_name" >
</activity> 

What this android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Holo.Dialog" does is change the theme of an activity. It's still a complete activity, but it has taken on a dialog form.

Here is the screenshot afterwards:

Let me know what you guys think in the comments. Happy coding !!

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)