Android Academy · Lesson

Bottom Navigation & Tabs

Implement multi-section navigation with BottomNavigationView connected to NavController, and swipeable tabs with TabLayout, ViewPager2, and TabLayoutMediator.

Navigation Patterns

Two common patterns for top-level navigation in Android apps:

Bottom Navigation — for 3–5 primary destinations. Always visible. Best for equal-importance sections (e.g., Home, Search, Profile).
Tabs — for related content within a screen (e.g., All / Active / Done). Often used with ViewPager2 for swipe support.

BottomNavigationView Layout

Add BottomNavigationView and a FragmentContainerView to your Activity layout:

<LinearLayout
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical">

    <androidx.fragment.app.FragmentContainerView
        android:id="@+id/navHostFragment"
        android:name="androidx.navigation.fragment.NavHostFragment"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="0dp"
        android:layout_weight="1"
        app:navGraph="@navigation/nav_graph"
        app:defaultNavHost="true" />

    <com.google.android.material.bottomnavigation.BottomNavigationView
        android:id="@+id/bottomNav"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        app:menu="@menu/bottom_nav_menu" />

</LinearLayout>

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