Difference tabActivity and tabhost and tab Layout

Question

What is difference between tabActivity and tabhost and tabLayout in Android?

My layout will have five tabs. Which one is best for this?

Answer 1

TabActivity is deprecated. You should use Fragments and FragmentManager instead. TabHost and TabWidget simply define a portion of the screen for tabs and tab content. There are ways to use them with a TabActivity, but it is not compulsory to do so. Note that there is now a FragmentTabHost class that you can consider as well.

If you want these tabs to actually be in the same Activity and be able to swipe between them, you can also consider using a ViewPager with a PagerTabStrip on top: https://developer.android.com/training/implementing-navigation/lateral.html

Answer 2

Documentation about making swipe views / tabs:

http://developer.android.com/design/building-blocks/tabs.html

http://developer.android.com/training/implementing-navigation/lateral.html

TabActivity:
deprecated in API level 13

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/TabActivity.html

TabHost:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/TabHost.html