How to write an Android multi-pane app with very deep navigation

Question

TL;DR: How should multi-pane apps with deep navigation similar to the Spotify iPad app look and work on Android, and how to implement this?

Answer 1

We ran into the same problem with our app. The constraints we gave ourselves:

• Dynamic numbers of panes
• Each pane can be differently sized
• Fragments inside of panes must be correctly retained on orientation changes.

In light of those constraints, we built a new layout we call PanesLayout. You can check it out here:

https://github.com/cricklet/Android-PanesLibrary

It basically allows you to easily add any number of dynamically sized panes and attach fragments to those panes. Hope you find it useful! :)