Android Activities vs Views
<p>Sorry, I know that this topic has been covered a bit.  I've read the related posts and am still a bit confused.  I am working on an app that while the prototype will have 3 main screens, it will eventually have dozens.  Each screen will present either dynmically changing status or take user input.  To visualize, it is required to be laid out similar to how MS Word or a typical PC is.  It has a status bar at the top and a navigation bar at the bottom that is common to all screens (slight tweaks for some screens, like different icons) in the middle is what I would call a view pane that needs to be updated with a applicable layout.</p>

<p>The status, nav bar, and each screen are defined in their own layout xml file.  For my first swag at it I just used a ViewFlipper and loaded the 3 screen layouts into it.  However that means that currently I have one main Activity which will not be maintainable as I continue to add screens.  </p>

<ol>
<li>It feels right to me that each screen layout should have an associated Activity class that understands how to control that screen.  I need to figure out how to load that into the center pane dynamically.  However I thought I read in another post that using multiple Activities can be a CPU and RAM drain.</li>
<li>Currently I tried making one of the screens it's own Activity and kick that off from the main Activity by creating an Intent and than calling startActivity.  However that causes the new screen Activity to reside on top of the main Activity.  The interesting thing is that then pressing the back button dismissed that activity and returns me to the main.  </li>
<li>So far I haven't figured out how to setup having a different Activity control what happens in the center pane.</li>
<li>If I continue down the multiple Activity path, should my main Activity be inheriting from ActivityGroup?</li>
<li>Are using View classes more applicable in this case?</li>
</ol>

<p>I know this has been a long post.  I'd appreciate any advice.
Thanks!
CB</p>
