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| <h2>Navigation with Back and Up</h2> |
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| <p>Consistent navigation is an essential component of the overall user experience. Few things frustrate |
| users more than basic navigation that behaves in inconsistent and unexpected ways. Android 3.0 |
| introduced significant changes to the global navigation behavior. Thoughtfully following the |
| guidelines for Back and Up will make your app's navigation predictable and reliable for your users.</p> |
| <p>Android 2.3 and earlier relied upon the system <em>Back</em> button for supporting navigation within an |
| app. With the introduction of action bars in Android 3.0, a second navigation mechanism appeared: |
| the <em>Up</em> button, consisting of the app icon and a left-point caret.</p> |
| |
| <img src="../static/content/navigation_with_back_and_up.png"> |
| |
| <h2 id="up-vs-back">Up vs. Back</h2> |
| |
| <p>The Up button is used to navigate within an application based on the hierarchical relationships |
| between screens. For instance, if screen A displays a list of items, and selecting an item leads to |
| screen B (which presents that item in more detail), then screen B should offer an Up button that |
| returns to screen A.</p> |
| <p>If a screen is the topmost one in an app (i.e. the home of the app), it should not present an Up |
| button.</p> |
| <p>The system Back key is used to navigate based on the history of screens the user has recently seen, |
| in reverse chronological order—in effect, the temporal relationships between screens.</p> |
| <p>When the previously viewed screen is also the hierarchical parent of the current screen, pressing |
| the Back key will have the same result as pressing an Up button -- this is a common occurrence. |
| However, unlike the Up button, which ensures the user remains within your app, the Back key can |
| return the user to the Home screen, or even to a different application.</p> |
| |
| <img src="../static/content/navigation_up_vs_back_gmail.png"> |
| |
| <p>The Back key also supports a few behaviors not directly tied to screen-to-screen navigation:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>Back dismisses floating windows (dialogs, popups)</li> |
| <li>Back dismisses contextual action bars, and removes the highlight from the selected items</li> |
| <li>Back hides the onscreen keyboard (IME)</li> |
| </ul> |
| <h2 id="within-app">Navigation Within Your App</h2> |
| |
| <h4>Navigating to screens with multiple entry points</h4> |
| <p>Sometimes a screen doesn't have a strict position within the app's hierarchy, and can be reached |
| from multiple entry points—e.g., a settings screen which can be navigated to from any screen |
| in your app. In this case, the Up button should choose to return to the referring screen, behaving |
| identically to Back.</p> |
| <h4>Changing view within a screen</h4> |
| <p>Changing view options for a screen does not change the behavior of Up or Back: the screen is still |
| in the same place within the app's hierarchy, and no new navigation history is created.</p> |
| <p>Examples of such view changes are:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>Switching views using tabs and/or left-and-right swipes</li> |
| <li>Switching views using a dropdown (aka collapsed tabs)</li> |
| <li>Filtering a list</li> |
| <li>Sorting a list</li> |
| <li>Changing display characteristics (e.g. zooming)</li> |
| </ul> |
| <h4>Navigating between sibling screens</h4> |
| <p>When your app supports navigation from a list of items to a detail view of one of those items, it's |
| often desirable to support direction navigation from that item to another one which precedes or |
| follows it in the list. For example, in Gmail, it's easy to swipe left or right from a conversation |
| to view a newer or older one in the same Inbox. Just as when changing view within a screen, such |
| navigation does not change the behavior of Up or Back.</p> |
| |
| <img src="../static/content/navigation_between_siblings_gmail.png"> |
| |
| <p>However, a notable exception to this occurs when browsing between "related" detail views not tied |
| together by the referring list—for example, when browsing in the Market between apps from |
| the same developer, or albums by the same artist. In these cases, following each link does create |
| history, causing the Back button to step through each screen of related content which has been |
| viewed. Up should continue to bypass these related screens and navigate to the most recently viewed |
| container screen.</p> |
| |
| <img src="../static/content/navigation_between_siblings_market1.png"> |
| |
| <p>You have the ability to make the Up behavior even smarter based on your knowledge of detail |
| view. If we extend our Market sample from above, imagine the user has navigated from the last Book |
| viewed to the details for the Movie adaptation. In that case, Up can return to a container (Movies) |
| which the user had not previously navigated through.</p> |
| |
| <img src="../static/content/navigation_between_siblings_market2.png"> |
| |
| <h2 id="from-outside">Navigation From Outside Your App</h2> |
| |
| <p>There are two categories of navigation from outside your app to screens deep within the app's |
| hierarchy:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>App-to-app navigation, such as via intent completion.</li> |
| <li>System-to-app navigation, such as via notifications and home screen widgets.</li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>Gmail provides examples of each of these. For app-to-app navigation, a "Share" intent goes directly |
| to the compose screen. For system-to-app navigation, both a new message notification and a home |
| screen widget can bypass the Inbox screen, taking the user directly to a conversation view.</p> |
| <h4>App-to-app navigation</h4> |
| <p>When navigating deep into your app's hierarchy directly from another app via an intent, Back will |
| return to the referring app.</p> |
| <p>The Up button is handled as follows: |
| - If the destination screen is typically reached from one particular screen within your app, Up |
| should navigate to that screen. |
| - Otherwise, Up should navigate to the topmost ("Home") screen of your app.</p> |
| <p>For example, after choosing to share a book being viewed in Market, the user navigates directly to |
| Gmail's compose screen. From there, Up returns to the Inbox (which happens to be both the |
| typical referrer to compose, as well as the topmost screen of the app), while Back returns to |
| Market.</p> |
| |
| <img src="../static/content/navigation_from_outside_up.png"> |
| |
| <h4>System-to-app navigation</h4> |
| <p>If your app was reached via the system mechanisms of notifications or home screen widgets, Up |
| behaves as described for app-to-app navigation, above.</p> |
| <p>For the Back key, you should make navigation more predictably by inserting into the task's back |
| stack the complete upward navigation path to the app's topmost screen. This way, a user who has |
| forgotten how they entered your app can safely navigate to the app's topmost screen before exiting |
| it.</p> |
| <p>For example, Gmail's Home screen widget has a button for diving directly to its compose screen. |
| After following that path, the Back key first returns to the Inbox, and from there continues to |
| Home.</p> |
| |
| <img src="../static/content/navigation_from_outside_back.png"> |
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