Using the Tab Bar

Enterprise Browser 3.5

Overview

Enterprise Browser 2.5 (and later) permits the use of tabs similar to those found on many desktop browsers, each with its own Config.xml file and potentially different sets of functions. Tabs are a convenient way to employ multiple apps or multiple feature sets with a simple and familiar way of switching between them.

NOTE: Similar functionality is available through the Multi-session feature and the NativeTabbar API.

Tab Bar Rules

  • EB tabs must be defined in advance using the tabbar.xml file. They cannot be created by the device user.
  • The tabbar.xml file resides on the device, and its path must be specified in the app's Config.xml file. More info.
  • Tabs are created when the EB app launches. To deploy or change one or more tabs, push a new tabbar.xml file to the device and relaunch the app.
  • The size of the device screen and its orientation effect tab display and the ease of switching between them. Zebra recommends deploying no more than 10 browser tabs.

Tab Bar Tags

TabGroup Attributes

Attributes under the <TabGroup> apply to all defined tabs. There can be zero or one TabGroups. If this node is missing, default values (shown in bold) are used.

placeTabsBottom

  • Controls whether tabs are shown at the bottom of the display; otherwise shown at the top (default)
  • true or false

hiddenTabs

  • Controls whether tags are hidden or shown (default)
  • true or false

backgroundColor

  • Controls the background color of the tab bar. If this tag is missing or unspecified, tab bar uses app's default color.
  • Accepts hexadecimal HTML color codes
  • Default = 0x000000 (black)

Tab Attributes

Attributes under each <tab> tag apply to only to the tab defined in that node.

action

  • MANDATORY: Used to specify the start page to be loaded when the tab is brought to the foreground
  • Accepts a URL or fully qualified path and file name of a device-resident HTML file
  • string

label

  • MANDATORY: Used to specify a title displayed in the tab. Must include at least one character.
  • Overridden if an icon is specified (but must still be present)
  • string

disabled

  • Optional: Controls whether tab creation is blocked (disabled by default)
  • boolean (true or false)

reload

  • Optional: Controls whether to refresh the URL (or file) specified in the Action parameter whenever the tab comes into focus (disabled by default)
  • boolean (true or false)

config

  • Optional: Used to specify the path of the Config.xml file containing properties to use when creating the tab
  • Accepts a fully qualified path and file name of the Config.xml file relevant to the Action
  • If missing or blank, uses the parent app's Config.xml file
  • string

icon

  • Optional: Used to specify the path (relative to the Enterprise Browser %INSTALL% directory) to an icon (image) file on the device to display in place of the specified tab title
  • Accepts a valid path and file name in the device file system
  • Supports .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .png file formats
  • Overrides title tag
  • string

backgroundColor

  • Optional: Controls the background color of the tab contents. If this tag is missing or unspecified, defaults to 0xFFFFFF (white).
  • Accepts hexadecimal HTML color codes
  • Default = 0xFFFFFF (white)
  • hex value (accepts FFFFFF or 0xFFFFFF notation)

selectedColor

  • Optional: Controls the color of the selected (active) tab
  • Accepts hexadecimal HTML color codes
  • hex value (accepts FFFFFF or 0xFFFFFF notation)

Android Note: Color assignment works only when a selectedColor attribute is applied to every tab and a backgroundColor is assigned to the tab bar.

Example

The example tabbar.xml file below creates a tabgroup of two (2) tabs, both of which are NOT hidden, do NOT appear at the bottom of the screen and do NOT use a custom background color. 


<?xml version = "1.0"?>
    <TabGroup>
        <placeTabsBottom>false</placeTabsBottom>
        <hiddenTabs>false</hiddenTabs>
        <backgroundColor>false</backgroundColor>
            <Tab>
                <action>https://www.zebra.com/us/en.html</action>
                <label>Zebra Tech</label>
                <disabled></disabled>
                <reload>false</reload>
                <config>/sdcard/Android/data/com.zebra.mdna.enterprisebrowser/s1/Config.xml
                </config>
            </Tab>
            <Tab>
                <action>https://techdocs.zebra.com</action>
                <label>Zebra Home</label>
                <disabled></disabled>
                <config>/sdcard/Android/data/com.zebra.mdna.enterprisebrowser/s2/Config.xml</config>
                <reload>false</reload>
            </Tab>
    </TabGroup>

See Also