I would like to create a seekbar for an Android app that allows the user to select a value between -5 and 5 (which maps to "strongly disagree" and "strongly agree"). How do I make a seekbar with discrete values? or is there a better UI widget I could use for this?
Thanks.
The Seekbar works great for discrete values. We use a Seekbar for discrete data as shown below. To show which item is selected, we just change the font of the selected text view so it is bigger. You could also highlight by changing the background color or something. It works pretty well. You will want to call setMax(11) on the seek bar, and then in your code you need to translate between the range (0 through 11) and (-5 through 5) appropriately.
<LinearLayout
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:gravity="center_horizontal">
<LinearLayout
android:orientation="horizontal"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:gravity="center_horizontal">
<TextView android:text="-5"
android:id="@+id/answerNegative5"
android:textSize="25sp"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
<TextView android:text="-4"
android:id="@+id/answerNegative4"
android:textSize="25sp"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
<TextView android:text="-3"
android:id="@+id/answerNegative3"
android:textSize="25sp"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
.....
</LinearLayout>
<SeekBar android:id="@+id/intensitySlider"
android:layout_weight="0"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
</LinearLayout>
If you want to implement discrete seekbar with number of gaps without using third party library then use style property of seekbar.
<SeekBar
android:id="@+id/sb"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:max="10"
android:thumb="@drawable/ic_location"
android:theme="@style/Widget.AppCompat.SeekBar.Discrete" />
I don't know what is the issue here, you add a seekbar having a range of 0-10. Then you can map these values to -5 if you substract -5 from the selected value.
EDIT
add android:max="10" to the xml definiton and you get a fixed size seekbar.
You maybe should consider to add a textview to denote the current selected value's textual representation such as: Strongly Disagree.
To update this view, subscribe to onProgressChanged event and progress parameter will give you the chosen number.
SeekBar s = (SeekBar) findViewById(R.id.SeekBar);
s.setOnSeekBarChangeListener(new OnSeekBarChangeListener() {
@Override
public void onProgressChanged(SeekBar seekBar,
int progress, boolean fromUser) {
}
}
I hope this code surely helpes you. Try this...
float discrete = 0;
float start = 0;
float end = 100;
float start_pos = 0;
int start_position = 0;
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
start = -10; //you need to give starting value of SeekBar
end = 10; //you need to give end value of SeekBar
start_pos = 5; //you need to give starting position value of SeekBar
start_position = (int)(((start_pos - start) / (end - start)) * 100);
discrete = start_pos;
SeekBar seek = (SeekBar) findViewById(R.id.seekBar1);
seek.setProgress(start_position);
seek.setOnSeekBarChangeListener(new OnSeekBarChangeListener() {
@Override
public void onStopTrackingTouch(SeekBar seekBar) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
Toast.makeText(getBaseContext(), "discrete = " + String.valueOf(discrete), Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}
@Override
public void onStartTrackingTouch(SeekBar seekBar) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
}
@Override
public void onProgressChanged(SeekBar seekBar, int progress, boolean fromUser) {
// TODO Auto-generated method stub
// To convert it as discrete value
float temp = progress;
float dis = end - start;
discrete = (start + ((temp / 100) * dis));
}
});
}
1-st step : set maxVal to 10;
2-nd step :
@Override
public void onProgressChanged(SeekBar seekBar, int progress,
boolean fromUser)
{
switch(seekBar.getId())
{
case R.id.mySeekBar:
int prValue = progress - 5;
editText.setText(String.valueOf(preValue));
break;
}
}
Just use the material components library with something like:
<com.google.android.material.slider.Slider
android:stepSize="1"
android:valueFrom="-5"
android:valueTo="5"
/>
<SeekBar
android:id="@+id/seekbar"
style="@style/SeekBarWithoutSteps"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_marginLeft="22dp"
android:layout_marginRight="22dp"
android:layout_marginTop="@dimen/margin_10"
android:max="4"
android:maxHeight="@dimen/margin_5"
android:minHeight="@dimen/margin_5"
android:paddingLeft="@dimen/margin_10"
android:paddingRight="@dimen/margin_10"
android:progressBackgroundTint="@color/colorGray"
android:progressTint="@color/colorGreen"
android:theme="@style/Widget.AppCompat.SeekBar.Discrete"
android:thumb="@drawable/filled_green"
android:thumbOffset="15dp" />
