Best way to implement multiple Alert Dialogs in an Activity

Question

I have an Activity with 3 Fragments, now each fragment has 2 ToggleButtons(total six buttons).
An AlertDialog is shown to the user on each button click.
Each button does some different action and so the layouts/views of Alert Dialog differ from each other, and so the positive button click for dialogs too differ, while the negative button click are almost same.

I have implemented the logic in an onButtonPressed method in the Activity as

onButtonPressed(View v){

    switch(v.getId()){
    case R.id.button1:
        // create and show an AlertDialog
    break;
    }
    case R.id.button2:
        // create and show an AlertDialog
    break;
    }
    case R.id.button3:
        // create and show an AlertDialog
    break;
    }
    .
    .
    .
}

This leads to lots of repetitive lines of code, which isn't the best thing AFAIK. I was willing to know if I should keep current implemention, or create a wrapper class something for creating and showing AlertDialogs.

Luis Pena · Answer 1 · 2015-02-28T17:37:50.400

You can create a class and then extend DialogFragment class and then override its OnCreateDialog() method, then you create a static method to create an instance and pass arguments.

The OnCreateDialog

@Override
public Dialog onCreateDialog(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    AlertDialog.Builder dialog = new AlertDialog.Builder(getActivity());
    //set title,message or view ....

    // when you done
    return dialog.create();
}

The static method to put arguments ( Static Factory Pattern Design )

public static CustomAlertDialog newInstance(String title,String message) {
CustomAlertDialog customAD = new CustomAlertDialog();
Bundle args = new Bundle();
args.putString("title", title);
args.putString("message", message);
customAD.setArguments(args);
return customAD;
}

Then you could use it like this

DialogFragment dialog = CustomAlertDialog.newInstance("titulo","message");
dialog.show(/* etc.. */ );

I like the solution but what is the advantage over a simple ProgressDialog ?@Luis Alberto — Maxim Toyberman, Jun 01 '16 at 19:26
How would you handle varying positive and negative button presses this way? — boltup_im_coding, Jul 21 '19 at 08:49

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

2

Modern approach to creating AlertDialogs is actually to wrap them inside DialogFragments, so you need to create a class extending DialogFragment, override its onCreateDialog() method and return an instance of AlertDialog from it. For the purpose of customizing the dialogs you can add a newInstance() method to your DialogFragment as described in this discussion and pass custom parameters to your class.

edited May 23 '17 at 10:34

Community

1
1

answered Dec 15 '13 at 16:20

Egor

39,695
10
113
130

Cool! If eventually you'll find this answer helpful, please don't forget to accept it. – Egor Dec 15 '13 at 16:25
Thankyou, I know the rules, Accept the answer if it helped :) – Rachit Mishra Dec 15 '13 at 16:27

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 15 '13 at 17:04

In my case I all my activities extend a common base-activity class called BaseActivity, where I have two overloads for a method called showAlertDialog():-

protected void showAlertDialog(Context context, String title,
                               String msg, DialogButton dialogButton) {
    AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(context);
    builder.setTitle(title);
    builder.setMessage(msg);
    Drawable alertDrawable = getResources().getDrawable(R.drawable.alert);
    alertDrawable.setBounds(0, 0, 32, 32);
    builder.setIcon(alertDrawable);
    if (dialogButton != null) {
        if (dialogButton.equals(DialogButton.YES) || dialogButton.equals(DialogButton.OK)) {
            int textId = dialogButton.equals(DialogButton.YES) ? R.string.yesTxt : R.string.ok;
            builder.setPositiveButton(textId, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
                @Override
                public void onClick(DialogInterface dialogInterface, int id) {
                }
            });
        } else if (dialogButton.equals(DialogButton.NO))
            builder.setNegativeButton(R.string.noTxt, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
                @Override
                public void onClick(DialogInterface dialogInterface, int id) {
                    onNegativeButtonClicked(dialogInterface, id);
                }
            });
    }
    AlertDialog alertDialog = builder.create();
    alertDialog.show();
}

protected void showAlertDialog(Context context, String title,
                               String msg, DialogButton dialogButton,
                               DialogButton nxtDialogButton) {
    AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(context);
    builder.setTitle(title);
    builder.setMessage(msg);
    Drawable alertDrawable = getResources().getDrawable(R.drawable.alert);
    alertDrawable.setBounds(0, 0, 32, 32);
    builder.setIcon(alertDrawable);
    if (dialogButton != null && nxtDialogButton != null) {
        if (dialogButton.equals(DialogButton.YES) || dialogButton.equals(DialogButton.OK)) {
            int textId = dialogButton.equals(DialogButton.YES) ? R.string.yesTxt : R.string.ok;
            builder.setPositiveButton(textId, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
                @Override
                public void onClick(DialogInterface dialogInterface, int id) {
                    onPositiveButtonClicked(dialogInterface, id);
                }
            });
        }
        if (nxtDialogButton.equals(DialogButton.NO))
            builder.setNegativeButton(R.string.noTxt, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
                @Override
                public void onClick(DialogInterface dialogInterface, int id) {
                    onNegativeButtonClicked(dialogInterface, id);
                }
            });
    }
    AlertDialog alertDialog = builder.create();
    alertDialog.show();
}  
protected void onPositiveButtonClicked(DialogInterface dialogInterface, int id) {
   //Override this to handle positive button press

}

protected void onNegativeButtonClicked(DialogInterface dialogInterface, int id) {
  //Override this to handle negative button press

}

where DialogButton is defined as :-

public enum DialogButton {
OK, YES, NO

}

Usage :-

showAlertDialog(this, "Heading", "A dialog with one button", DialogButton.OK)

showAlertDialog(this, "Heading", "A dialog with two button", DialogButton.YES, DialogButton.NO)

PS : Instead of using R.string.yesTxt, I could have done a reverse lookup for string in DialogButton enum (thought for some this I didn't realise this at that time).

Very good implementation. Should be accepted answer. Just a small add : if the base activity is in another package (let's say an SDK library) the access modifier should be public instead of protected. — BMU, Apr 30 '18 at 16:54

Best way to implement multiple Alert Dialogs in an Activity

3 Answers3