How do I programmatically add EditTextPreferences to my PreferenceFragment?

Question

I am new to Android, so I need a little guidance on how to programmatically add EditTextPreference objects to my PreferenceFragment

Answer 1

You can add preferences, e.g. EditTextPreference, CheckBox, etc, programmatically in the "onCreate" method of the PreferenceFragment.

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    // Load "dummy" (empty) preferences from an XML resource
    addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.preferences_channelconfig);

    PreferenceScreen screen = this.getPreferenceScreen(); // "null". See onViewCreated.

    // Create the Preferences Manually - so that the key can be set programatically.
    PreferenceCategory category = new PreferenceCategory(screen.getContext());
    category.setTitle("Channel Configuration");
    screen.addPreference(category);

    CheckBoxPreference checkBoxPref = new CheckBoxPreference(screen.getContext());
    checkBoxPref.setKey(channelConfig.getName() + "_ENABLED");
    checkBoxPref.setTitle(channelConfig.getShortname() + "Enabled");
    checkBoxPref.setSummary(channelConfig.getDescription());
    checkBoxPref.setChecked(channelConfig.isEnabled());

    category.addPreference(checkBoxPref);
}

The crucial step is the addPreferencesFromResource(...), with a dummy xml to attach an empty PreferenceScreen to the fragment. Without this, there is no "top-level Preference that is the root of a Preference hierarchy", thus this.getPreferenceScreen() returns Null.

The XML I used was just:

Hope that helps someone.