Starting a new activity on navigation drawer item click

Question

I know this is a question frequently asked, but after reading the many questions and solutions on stack overflow I am confused. I am confused with regards to Fragments and what is required to start an activity from clicking an item in the navigation drawer.

I've checked these posts but only got confused Q1 , Q2

Could someone please explain what is required to start a basic activity from this navigation drawer item? Do I need an onClick method implemented where specified in the code? Also how does this relate to the Intent?

Here is my MainActivity.java

import android.content.res.Configuration;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.design.widget.NavigationView;
import android.support.v4.widget.DrawerLayout;
import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarDrawerToggle;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.view.Menu;
import android.view.MenuItem;

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

DrawerLayout drawerLayout;
ActionBarDrawerToggle drawerToggle;
NavigationView navigation;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
    initInstances();
}

private void initInstances() {
    getSupportActionBar().setHomeButtonEnabled(true);
    getSupportActionBar().setDisplayHomeAsUpEnabled(true);

    drawerLayout = (DrawerLayout) findViewById(R.id.drawerLayout);
    drawerToggle = new ActionBarDrawerToggle(MainActivity.this, drawerLayout, R.string.hello_world, R.string.hello_world);
    drawerLayout.setDrawerListener(drawerToggle);

    navigation = (NavigationView) findViewById(R.id.navigation_view);
    navigation.setNavigationItemSelectedListener(new NavigationView.OnNavigationItemSelectedListener() {
        @Override
        public boolean onNavigationItemSelected(MenuItem menuItem) {
            int id = menuItem.getItemId();
            switch (id) {
                case R.id.navigation_item_1:
                    //Do some thing here
                    // add navigation drawer item onclick method here
                    break;
                case R.id.navigation_item_2:
                    //Do some thing here
                    // add navigation drawer item onclick method here
                    break;
                case R.id.navigation_item_3:
                    //Do some thing here
                    // add navigation drawer item onclick method here
                    break;
                case R.id.navigation_item_4:
                    //Do some thing here
                    // add navigation drawer item onclick method here
                    break;
                case R.id.navigation_item_5:
                    //Do some thing here
                    // add navigation drawer item onclick method here
                    break;
            }
            return false;
        }
    });

}

@Override
public void onPostCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onPostCreate(savedInstanceState);
    drawerToggle.syncState();
}

@Override
public void onConfigurationChanged(Configuration newConfig) {
    super.onConfigurationChanged(newConfig);
    drawerToggle.onConfigurationChanged(newConfig);
}

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.navigation_view_items, menu);
    return true;
}

@Override
public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
    if (drawerToggle.onOptionsItemSelected(item))
        return true;

    // Handle action bar item clicks here. The action bar will
    // automatically handle clicks on the Home/Up button, so long
    // as you specify a parent activity in AndroidManifest.xml.
    int id = item.getItemId();

    //noinspection SimplifiableIfStatement
    if (id == R.string.action_settings) {
        return true;
    }

    return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
}

And here is the second activity, Playboard.java, that simply loads a background image:

import android.app.Activity;
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;

public class Playboard extends Activity {
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_playboard);
    }
}

All input greatly appreciated thanks!

Answer 1

For each case statement you just need to specify which Activity you want to start via an Intent .

Say for example you want to start the Playboard activity when navigation_item_1 is selected.

You would add this code to that particular case .

case R.id.navigation_item_1:
    Intent i = new Intent(MainActivity.this, Playboard.class);
    startActivity(i);
    break;

Answer 2

Instead of

NavigationUI.setupWithNavController(navigationView, navController);

Do this

navigationView.setNavigationItemSelectedListener(new 
    NavigationView.OnNavigationItemSelectedListener() {
        @Override
        public boolean onNavigationItemSelected(@NonNull MenuItem item) { 
            Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this, "clicked", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
            return false;
        }
    }
);

Answer 3

One word of warning: if you have any animations on the drawerbox, starting an activity from the main thread directly will cause the animation to end prematurely and look weird. To work around this issue you can do the following (code uses retrolambda for prettiness, but it's not necessary):

Class<? extends Activity> activityClass = null;
switch (menuItem.getItemId()) {
  case R.id.navigation_item_1:
    activityClass = MainActivity.class;
    break;
 }

 final Class<?> finalActivityClass = activityClass;
 Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor().execute(() -> {
   Intent intent = new Intent(getApplicationContext(), finalActivityClass);
   startActivity(intent);
 });

 menuItem.setChecked(true);
 mDrawerLayout.closeDrawers();