docs/html/sdk/compatibility-library.jd

page.title=Support Package

@jd:body

<div id="qv-wrapper">
<div id="qv">

<h2>In this document</h2>
<ol>
  <li><a href="#Notes">Revisions</a></li>
  <li><a href="#Downloading">Downloading the Support Package</a></li>
  <li><a href="#SettingUp">Setting Up a Project to Use a Library</a></li>
  <li><a href="#Using">Using the v4 Library APIs</a></li>
  <li><a href="#Docs">Reference Docs</a></li>
  <li><a href="#Samples">Samples</a></li>
</ol>

<h2>See also</h2>
<ol>
  <li><a
href="{@docRoot}guide/practices/optimizing-for-3.0.html">Optimizing Apps for Android 3.0</a></li>
  <li><a href="http://code.google.com/p/iosched/">Google I/O App source code</a></li>
</ol>

</div>
</div>

<p><em>Minimum API level supported:</em> <b>4</b></p>

<p>The Support Package includes static "support libraries" that you can add to your Android
application in order to use APIs that are either not available for older platform versions or that
offer "utility" APIs that aren't a part of the framework APIs. The goal is to simplify your
development by offering more APIs that you can bundle with your application so you can
worry less about platform versions.</p>

<p class="note"><strong>Note:</strong> The Support Package includes more than one support
library. Each one has a different <em>minimum API level</em>. For example, one library requires API
level 4 or higher, while another requires API level 13 or higher (v13 is a superset of v4 and
includes additional
support classes to work with v13 APIs). The minimum version is indicated
by the directory name, such as {@code v4/} and {@code v13/}.</p>


<h2 id="Notes">Revisions</h2>

<p>The sections below provide notes about successive releases of
the Support Package, as denoted by revision number.</p>

<div class="toggle-content open">

  <p><a href="#" onclick="return toggleContent(this)">
    <img src="{@docRoot}assets/images/triangle-opened.png" class="toggle-content-img" />
    Support Package, revision 7 (March 2012)
  </a></p>

  <div class="toggle-content-toggleme" style="padding-left:2em">
    <dl>
      <dt>Changes for v4 support library:</dt>
      <dd>
        <ul>
          <li>Added {@link android.support.v4.app.ShareCompat}, which provides helper classes
for sending and receiving content for social sharing applications, including new metadata for
attributing shared data to the source app. This class also provides compatible integration with the
new {@link android.widget.ShareActionProvider} in Android 4.0.</li>
          <li>Added {@link android.support.v4.app.NavUtils} and {@link
android.support.v4.app.TaskStackBuilder} to provide support for implementing the
<a href="{@docRoot}design/index.html">Android Design</a> guidelines for navigation. These 
additions include a way to implement the action bar's <em>Up</em> button across versions.
For an example implementation of this pattern, see the AppNavigation sample in
({@code <em>&lt;sdk&gt;</em>/samples/<em>&lt;platform&gt;</em>/AppNavigation}).</li>
          <li>Added {@link android.support.v4.app.NotificationCompat.Builder} to provide a
compatibility implementation of Android 3.0's {@link android.app.Notification.Builder} helper class
for creating standardized system notifications.</li>
        </ul>
      </dd>
    </dl>
  </div>

<div class="toggle-content closed">

  <p><a href="#" onclick="return toggleContent(this)">
    <img src="{@docRoot}assets/images/triangle-closed.png" class="toggle-content-img" />
    Support Package, revision 6 (December 2011)
  </a></p>

  <div class="toggle-content-toggleme" style="padding-left:2em">
    <p class="note"><strong>Note:</strong> Reference for support library APIs are now available with
    the framework references, for example: {@link android.support.v4.app}.</p>
<dl>
      <dt>Changes for v4 support library:</dt>
      <dd>
        <ul>
          <li>Changes to ViewPager:
            <ul>
              <li>Added extra decorative view support for {@link android.support.v4.view.ViewPager}.
                Decorative views may be supplied as child views of a pager in XML layout.</li>
              <li>Added {@link android.support.v4.view.PagerAdapter#getPageTitle
                PagerAdapter.getPageTitle()} to supply title strings for pages, which defaults to no
                title for each page.</li>
              <li>Added {@link android.support.v4.view.PagerTitleStrip}, a non-interactive title
                strip, that can be added as a child of ViewPager. Developers can supply text
                appearance and color, as well as layout sizing and gravity information.</li>
              <li>Updated {@link android.support.v4.view.PagerAdapter} methods to take ViewGroup
                objects, rather than View to avoid class casting in adapter implementations.</li>
              <li>Updated {@link android.support.v4.view.ViewPager} to use Launcher-style
                fling behavior.</li>
              <li>Bug fixes for user interface interaction and test automation.</li>
            </ul>
          </li>

          <li>Support for Fragments:
            <ul>
              <li>Changed {@code setStartDeferred()} method to {@link
                android.support.v4.app.Fragment#setUserVisibleHint}.</li>
              <li>Added deferred start for off-screen pages to improve performance.</li>
            </ul>
          </li>

          <li>Support for Accessiblity APIs:
            <ul>
              <li>Updated {@link android.support.v4.view.AccessibilityDelegateCompat} methods
                to return empty lists instead of null.</li>
              <li>Added new APIs needed by the v4 samples.</li>
            </ul>
          </li>

        </ul>
      </dd>
    </dl>
  </div>

<div class="toggle-content closed">

  <p><a href="#" onclick="return toggleContent(this)">
    <img src="{@docRoot}assets/images/triangle-closed.png" class="toggle-content-img" />
    Support Package, revision 5 (December 2011)
  </a></p>

  <div class="toggle-content-toggleme" style="padding-left:2em">
    <dl>
      <dt>Changes for v4 support library:</dt>
      <dd>
        <ul>
          <li>Support for Accessiblity APIs:
            <ul>
              <li>Added {@link android.support.v4.view.AccessibilityDelegateCompat}
              to support {@link android.view.View.AccessibilityDelegate}.</li>

              <li>Added {@link android.support.v4.view.accessibility.AccessibilityEventCompat}
              to support {@link android.view.accessibility.AccessibilityEvent}.</li>

              <li>Added {@link android.support.v4.view.accessibility.AccessibilityManagerCompat}
              to support {@link android.view.accessibility.AccessibilityManager}.</li>

              <li>Added {@link android.support.v4.view.accessibility.AccessibilityNodeInfoCompat}
              to support {@link android.view.accessibility.AccessibilityNodeInfo}.</li>

              <li>Added {@link android.support.v4.view.accessibility.AccessibilityRecordCompat}
              to support {@link android.view.accessibility.AccessibilityRecord}.</li>

              <li>Added {@link
              android.support.v4.accessibilityservice.AccessibilityServiceInfoCompat}
              to support {@link android.accessibilityservice.AccessibilityServiceInfo}.</li>

              <li>Added {@link android.support.v4.view.ViewGroupCompat}
              to support accessibility features in {@link android.view.ViewGroup}.
              </li>

              <li>Modified {@link android.support.v4.view.ViewCompat}
              to support accessibility features in {@link android.view.View}.</li>
            </ul>
          </li>

          <li>Changes to ViewPager:
            <ul>
              <li>Added support for margins between pages.
              An optional {@link android.graphics.drawable.Drawable} can be provided
              to fill the margins.</li>
              <li>Added support for {@link android.widget.EdgeEffect}.</li>
              <li>Added support for keyboard navigation</li>
              <li>Added support to control how many pages are kept to either side
              of the current page.</li>
              <li>Improved touch physics.</li>
              <li>Bug fixes for user interface behavior.</li>
            </ul>
          </li>
        </ul>
      </dd>
    </dl>
  </div>

<div class="toggle-content closed">

  <p><a href="#" onclick="return toggleContent(this)">
    <img src="{@docRoot}assets/images/triangle-closed.png" class="toggle-content-img" />
    Support Package, revision 4 (October 2011)
  </a></p>

  <div class="toggle-content-toggleme" style="padding-left:2em">
    <dl>
      <dt>Changes for v4 support library:</dt>
      <dd>
        <ul>
          <li>Added <code>EdgeEffectCompat</code> to
          support {@link android.widget.EdgeEffect}.</li>

          <li>Added <code>LocalBroadcastManager</code> to allow applications to easily
            register for and receive intents within a single application without
            broadcasting them globally.</li>

          <li>Added support in <code>ViewCompat</code> to check for and set overscroll
          modes for {@link android.view.View}s on Android 2.3 and later.</li>
          <li>Changes to Fragment APIs:
            <ul>
              <li>Added new APIs to control the visibility of new menus.</li>
              <li>Added custom animation APIs.</li>
              <li>Added APIs in <code>FragmentActivity</code> to retain custom,
              non-configuration instance data.</li>
              <li>Various bug fixes.</li>
            </ul>
          </li>

          <li>Fixed a {@link android.content.Loader} bug that caused issues in
          canceling {@link android.os.AsyncTask}s when running on Froyo and older
          versions of the platform. The support
          code now uses its own version of {@link android.os.AsyncTask} to keep the same
          behavior on all platform versions.</li>

        </ul>
      </dd>
    </dl>
  </div>



</div>


<div class="toggle-content closed">

  <p><a href="#" onclick="return toggleContent(this)">
    <img src="{@docRoot}assets/images/triangle-closed.png" class="toggle-content-img" />
    Compatibility Package, revision 3 (July 2011)
  </a></p>

  <div class="toggle-content-toggleme" style="padding-left:2em">
    <dl>
      <dt>Changes for v4 support library:</dt>
      <dd>
        <ul>
          <li>Adds support for {@link android.app.Fragment.SavedState}</li>
          <li>Adds {@code MotionEventCompat} to support newer {@link
android.view.MotionEvent} APIs</li>
          <li>Adds {@code VelocityTrackerCompat} to support a newer {@link
android.view.VelocityTracker} APIs</li>
          <li>Adds {@code ViewConfigurationCompat} to support a newer {@link
android.view.ViewConfiguration} APIs</li>
          <li>All new APIs (available only in the support library) that allow you to create UIs
with horizontal paging, allowing users to swipe left and right between content views. Classes to
support this include:
            <ul>
              <li>{@code ViewPager}: A {@link android.view.ViewGroup} that manages the
layout for the child views, which the user can swipe between.</li>
              <li>{@code PagerAdapter}: An adapter that populates the {@code ViewPager} with the
views that represent each page.</li>
              <li>{@code FragmentPagerAdapter}: An extension of {@code PagerAdapter} for flipping
between fragments.</li>
              <li>{@code FragmentStatePagerAdapter}: An extension of {@code PagerAdapter} for
flipping between fragments that uses the library's support for {@link
android.app.Fragment.SavedState}.</li>
            </ul>
          </li>
        </ul>
      </dd>
      <dt>New v13 support library:</dt>
      <dd>
        <ul>
          <li>Includes the {@code FragmentPagerAdapter} and {@code FragmentStatePagerAdapter}
to support the horizontal paging.
          <p>These are exactly the same as the APIs added to the v4 support library, but rely on
other platform components in Android 3.2. Use this library instead of v4 if you're developing for
Android 3.2 and higher (all other APIs in the v4 library are already available with API level
13).</p>
          </li>
        </ul>
      </dd>
    </dl>
  </div>

</div>


<div class="toggle-content closed">

  <p><a href="#" onclick="return toggleContent(this)">
    <img src="{@docRoot}assets/images/triangle-closed.png" class="toggle-content-img" />
    Compatibility Package, revision 2 (May 2011)
  </a></p>

  <div class="toggle-content-toggleme" style="padding-left:2em">
    <dl>
    <dt>Changes for v4 library:</dt>
    <dd>
      <ul>
        <li>Support for fragment animations</li>
        <li>Fix {@code android.support.v4.app.Fragment#onActivityResult Fragment.onActivityResult()}
          bug</li>
      </ul>
    </dd>
    </dl>
  </div>

</div>


<div class="toggle-content closed">

  <p><a href="#" onclick="return toggleContent(this)">
    <img src="{@docRoot}assets/images/triangle-closed.png" class="toggle-content-img" />
    Compatibility Package, revision 1 (March 2011)
  </a></p>

  <div class="toggle-content-toggleme" style="padding-left:2em">
      <p>Initial release with the v4 library.</p>
  </div>

</div>



<h2 id="Downloading">Downloading the Support Package</h2>

<p>The Support Package is provided as a downloadable package from the Android SDK and AVD
Manager. To install:</p>

<ol>
  <li>Launch the SDK and AVD Manager.
    <p>From Eclipse, you can select <strong>Window</strong>
&gt; <strong>Android SDK and AVD Manager</strong>. Or, launch {@code SDK Manager.exe} from
the {@code &lt;sdk&gt;/} directory (on Windows only) or {@code android} from the {@code
&lt;sdk&gt;/tools/} directory.</p></li>
  <li>Expand the Android Repository, check <strong>Android Support package</strong>
and click <strong>Install selected</strong>.</li>
  <li>Proceed to install the package.</li>
</ol>

<p>When done, all files (including source code, samples, and the {@code .jar} files) are saved
into the <code>&lt;sdk&gt;/extras/android/support/</code> directory. This directory contains
each of the different support libraries, such as the library for API level 4 and up and the library
for API level 13 and up, each named with the respective version (such as {@code v4/}).</p>


<h2 id="SettingUp">Setting Up a Project to Use a Library</h2>

<p>To add one of the libraries to your Android project:</p>
<ol>
  <li>In your Android project, create a directory named {@code libs} at the root of your
project (next to {@code src/}, {@code res/}, etc.)</li>
  <li>Locate the JAR file for the library you want to use and copy it into the {@code
libs/} directory.
    <p>For example, the library that supports API level 4 and up is located at {@code
&lt;sdk&gt;/extras/android/support/v4/android-support-v4.jar}.</p>
  </li>
  <li>Add the JAR to your project build path.
    <p>In Eclipse, right-click the JAR file in the Package Explorer, select <strong>Build
Path</strong> &gt; <strong>Add to Build Path</strong>.</p>
  </li>
</ol>

<p>Your application is now ready to use the library APIs. All the
provided APIs are available in the {@code android.support} package (for
example, {@code android.support.v4}).</p>

<p class="note"><strong>Tip:</strong> To see the library APIs in action, take a look at the sample
apps in {@code &lt;sdk&gt;/extras/android/support/&lt;version&gt;/samples/}.</p>

<p class="warning"><strong>Warning:</strong> Be certain that you not confuse the standard
{@code android} packages with those in {@code android.support} library. Some code completion tools
might
get this wrong, especially if you're building against recent versions of the platform. To be safe,
keep your build target set to the same version as you have defined for your <a
href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/manifest/uses-sdk-element.html#min">{@code android:minSdkVersion}</a>
and double check the import statements for classes that also exist in the support library, such as
{@code SimpleCursorAdapter}.</p>


<h2 id="Using">Using the v4 Library APIs</h2>

<p>The support library for v4 provides access to several classes introduced with Android 3.0 and
beyond, plus some updated version of existing classes, and even some APIs that currently don't
exist in the Android platform. Some of the most useful and notable classes that have
counterparts in the v4 support library are:</p>

<ul>
  <li>{@link android.app.Fragment}</li>
  <li>{@link android.app.FragmentManager}</li>
  <li>{@link android.app.FragmentTransaction}</li>
  <li>{@link android.app.ListFragment}</li>
  <li>{@link android.app.DialogFragment}</li>
  <li>{@link android.app.LoaderManager}</li>
  <li>{@link android.content.Loader}</li>
  <li>{@link android.content.AsyncTaskLoader}</li>
  <li>{@link android.content.CursorLoader}</li>
</ul>

<p>For each of the classes above (and others not listed), the APIs work almost exactly the same
as the counterparts in the latest Android platform. Thus, you can usually refer to
the online documentation for information about the supported APIs. There are some
differences, however. Most notably:</p>

<ul>
  <li>When creating an activity to use fragments, you must declare your activity to extend the
{@link android.support.v4.app.FragmentActivity} class (instead of the traditional
{@link android.app.Activity} class).</li>
  <li>To manage your fragments and loaders, you must use the methods
  {@link android.support.v4.app.FragmentActivity#getSupportFragmentManager
  FragmentActivity.getSupportFragmentManager()} and
  {@link android.support.v4.app.FragmentActivity#getSupportLoaderManager
  FragmentActivity.getSupportLoaderManager()} (instead of the
  {@link android.app.Activity#getFragmentManager()} and
  {@link android.app.Activity#getLoaderManager()} methods).</li>
  <li>The {@link android.app.ActionBar} is <strong>not supported</strong> by the library.
However, when creating your <a href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/ui/menus.html#options-menu">Options
Menu</a>, you can declare which items should be added to the Action Bar when it's available (on
Android 3.0 or later). You can do so with the
{@link android.support.v4.view.MenuCompat#setShowAsAction MenuCompat.setShowAsAction()} method, for
example:
<pre>
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
    inflater.inflate(R.menu.options, menu);
    MenuCompat.setShowAsAction(menu.findItem(R.id.action_search), 1);
    return true;
}
</pre>
<p>Also see the <a href="{@docRoot}resources/samples/ActionBarCompat/index.html">Action Bar
Compatibility</a> sample for a demonstration of how to use {@link android.app.ActionBar} on Android
3.0+ and also support action bar functionality on older versions.</p>
</li>
</ul>

<div class="note"><p><strong>Tip:</strong> To enable the Holographic theme on devices
running Android 3.0 or higher, declare in your manifest file that your application targets
API level 11, for example:</p>
<pre>
&lt;uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="4" android:targetSdkVersion="11" /&gt;
</pre>
<p>This way, your application automatically receives the Holographic theme and the Action Bar for
each activity when running on Android 3.0 and higher.</p>
</div>

<p>For more information about how you can optimize your application for the latest
Android-powered devices, read <a href="{@docRoot}guide/practices/optimizing-for-3.0.html">Optimizing
Apps for Android 3.0</a>.</p>


<h2 id="Docs">Reference Docs</h2>

<p>The reference documentation for the Support Packages is included as part of the Android
online developer documentation:</p>

<ul>
  <li><a href="{@docRoot}reference/android/support/v4/app/package-summary.html">Support Package
    API 4 Reference</a></li>
  <li><a href="{@docRoot}reference/android/support/v13/app/package-summary.html">Support Package
    API 13 Reference</a></li>
</ul>


<h2 id="Samples">Samples</h2>

<p>If you want to see some code that uses the support libraries, samples are included with the
Support Package, inside each support library directory, for example; {@code
&lt;sdk&gt;/extras/android/support/v4/samples/}. You can also view these samples as part of the
Android online developer documentation:</p>

<ul>
  <li><a href="{@docRoot}resources/samples/Support4Demos/index.html">Support API 4 Demos</a></li>
  <li><a href="{@docRoot}resources/samples/Support13Demos/index.html">Support API 13 Demos</a></li>
</ul>

<p>Additionally, the <a href="http://code.google.com/p/iosched/">Google I/O App</a> is a complete
application that uses the v4 support library to provide a single APK for both handsets and tablets
and also demonstrates some of Android's best practices in Android UI design.</p>