How to add a button to PreferenceScreen

There is another solution for customizing the appearance of the preferences.

Design a normal XML layout with buttons or whatever you want to add to the standard preferences. Include a ListView in your layout and give it the ID @android:id/list.

Let's say we call the layout file res/layout/main.xml. It could look something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
              android:layout_width="fill_parent"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent"
              android:orientation="vertical">
    <Button android:text="This is a button on top of all preferences."
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
    <ListView android:id="@android:id/list"
              android:layout_width="fill_parent"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent" />
</LinearLayout>

In your PreferenceActivity, add these two lines to your onCreate:

addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.preferences);
setContentView(R.layout.main);

The ListView in your layout will then be replaced by the preferences defined the usual way in res/xml/preferences.xml.