ActionBar 'up' button destroys parent activity, 'back' does not

Question

I have a relatively simple Android app with one Activity showing a list of items and another showing details of a selected item. I start the list activity, whi

Answer 1

In the android manifest.xml adding the following attribute for the parent activity tag worked for me.

android:launchMode="singleTop"

Reference : http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/activity-element.html

Refer the similar question: How can I return to a parent activity correctly?

Answer 2

It looks like your parent activity isn't setup properly in your manifest. Add this inside your ShowInstanceActivity activity tag:

<meta-data android:name="android.support.PARENT_ACTIVITY" android:value=".agenda.ListInstancesActivity" />

So, your final activity tag should look like:

<activity
  android:name=".agenda.ShowInstanceActivity"
  android:label="@string/show_instance_activity_title"
  android:parentActivityName=".agenda.ListInstancesActivity">
  <meta-data android:name="android.support.PARENT_ACTIVITY" android:value=".agenda.ListInstancesActivity" />
</activity>

Answer 3

when you specify parent activity in manifest then it gets restarted when you click on up Navigation button in action bar.

check this i already answered this question

https://stackoverflow.com/a/32401235/3479012

you need to override up nevigation button in actionbar by accessing it by android.R.id.home in onOptionsItemSelected and do finish top activity.

Answer 4

You can override what the actionbar up button should do like:

public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
switch (item.getItemId()) {

case android.R.id.home:
    onBackPressed();
    return true;
}

return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
}

And recreate the back button effect.