One of the more annoying aspects of Android programming is that while basically anything is possible with the SDK, there are lots of straight forward things that aren't documented very well.
I ran into one of those things today. Now there is all sorts of documentation that show how to use a MapFragment to display a MapView. Unfortunately if you are looking to just include a MapView inside of a Fragment, that documentation does you no good. You can't include a Fragment inside of a Fragment (as of right now) because the Fragment lifecycles get all screwed up when you go to create the Fragment view.
There are times when you just can't. My case was needing to show some arbitrary views above the MapView (so couldn't use a MapFragment) and still make everything work with a NavigationDrawer (which requires the subviews to all be fragments).
The solution I came to was to include the MapView directly in my Fragment layout and then implement the MapViews lifecycle calls. Now you can have a MapView inside of a Fragment.
Layout
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:orientation="vertical" >
<TextView
android:id="@+id/arbitraryView"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
<com.google.android.gms.maps.MapView
android:id="@+id/map"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="0dp"
android:layout_weight="1"/>
</LinearLayout>Fragment
public class CustomMapFragment extends Fragment {
private GoogleMap googleMap;
private MapView mapView;
private boolean mapsSupported = true;
@Override
public void onActivityCreated(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
try {
MapsInitializer.initialize(getActivity());
} catch (GooglePlayServicesNotAvailableException e) {
mapsSupported = false;
}
if (mapView != null) {
mapView.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
}
initializeMap();
}
private void initializeMap() {
if (googleMap == null && mapsSupported) {
mapView = (MapView) getActivity().findViewById(R.id.map);
googleMap = mapView.getMap();
//setup markers etc...
}
}
@Override
public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
Bundle savedInstanceState) {
final LinearLayout parent = (LinearLayout) inflater.inflate(R.layout.nearby_layout, container, false);
mapView = (MapView) parent.findViewById(R.id.map);
return parent;
}
@Override
public void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle outState) {
super.onSaveInstanceState(outState);
mapView.onSaveInstanceState(outState);
}
@Override
public void onResume() {
super.onResume();
mapView.onResume();
initializeMap();
}
@Override
public void onPause() {
super.onPause();
mapView.onPause();
}
@Override
public void onDestroy() {
super.onDestroy();
mapView.onDestroy();
}
@Override
public void onLowMemory() {
super.onLowMemory();
mapView.onLowMemory();
}
}