4.3.3. Customizing a ListActivity’s Layout

A ListActivity’s default GUI contains only a ListView that fills the screen’s client area between Android’s top and bottom system bars (which were explained in Fig. 2.1). If a ListActivity’s GUI requires only the default ListView, then you do not need to define a separate layout for your ListActivity subclass.

The Twitter Searches app’s MainActivity displays several GUI components. For this reason you’ll define a custom layout for MainActivity. When customizing a ListActivity subclass’s GUI, the layout must contain a ListView with its Id attribute set to "@android:id/list"—the name that class ListActivity uses to reference its ListView.