I am getting very confused on how to support all different Android screen sizes. I have already checked this answer, this site, the official documentations and many other answers but still I am confused so please don't mark this as Duplicate.
I already created layout-sw120dp, layout-sw160dp, layout-sw240dp, layout-sw320dp, layout-sw480dp (I only need to support up to 6 inches so I don't create layout-sw600dp).
What do I have to do is just have one layout and just copy it in each different folder so Android will do the selection on its own or I also need to change values in each layout?
What do I have to do is just have one layout and just copy it in each different folder or I also need to change values in each layout?
You start by deleting the layout-sw120dp, layout-sw160dp, layout-sw240dp, layout-sw320dp, and layout-sw480dp directories that you created. Or, at least, ignore them for now.
You then start implementing your UI, putting layout resources in res/layout/.
Then, for those layouts that need to be different in certain scenarios, you then create a directory representing the size when you want a different layout. Copy the layout from res/layout/ into the new directory, and then modify that copy to reflect whatever changes you want.
In other words, one copy of every layout is in res/layout/, and you override where needed with additional, modified copies in specific directories where you need the UI to change.
If you want to use the same layout for each and every screen density, you don't need to create different folders. Use just one simply called "layout" and the system will interpret it for every density. However, this could lead to strange layouts on certain physical devices depending on their screen size and density...
Another point you have to be aware of, if your application supports orientation changes, is that you have to design layouts for portrait and lanscape orientations. This is done by duplicating a folder used for a density and add "-port" or "-land" to inform the systen which one must be used according to the actual orientation of the device your app is currently running on.
If you want to precisely define your app look and feel, you have to customize your layout for each density. And if you use bitmaps, you will have to customize them either (for example, your app icon should be defined with different sizes to keep a good looking for each screen density). Just as for the layout, you have to create "drawable-..." folders to contain the corresponding versions of your bitmaps.
This is an answer that's been an issue from old ages and for which you'll see lot many answers but which is not a one fit all type still. What I did come up with though when faced with the same issue was to use PercentRelativeLayout. This is a relatively new feature that was started from Android support version 23.0 (android sdk manager), and one of the big game changers according to me, since it allowed
developers to specify their blocks relative to the layout size Percentage-wise. And since it is in terms of percent, this fits all screen sizes with varying dimensions, but while maintaining the ratio.
Ofcourse this method involves some trial and error and a lot of experimenting, but I found this method to be the easiest to implement and which took out the headache of maintaining the dimensions for various screen sizes.
Few tutorials to get you started :
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/android/android_relative_layout.htm
https://guides.codepath.com/android/Constructing-View-Layouts
Related
I'm working on the layout of an android application. But I have a question about the layout. Once i have created a layout and then go to another screen (for instance 4 inches to 5 inches) all my buttons and text boxes are messed up..
Is there a method to make everything static, so that my layout works on every mobile phone..
What kind of layout are you using, could it be RelativeLayout? that might be your problem in this particular instance.
Anyway, in android there are many screen sizes, each of them you should handle with different layouts depending on orientation, size and density. There is no magic formula as far as I know, but 9-patch images can help a lot. Another thing you should do is make sure that you understand how match_parent and wrap_content values work for height and width.
Check this out: Suppoting different screens
You have to create folders for different types of screens take a look at android developers training
This document contains everything you need.
Instead of having everything fixed, it shows how to design a layer that adapts to the various screens you may encounter.
I am developing a simple game part of application where i need to create a game using lots of images of different different shapes, imagine ice breaker game where i need to break ice using hammer.
So when i think of setting layout with different types of ice images and that too which support all different densities,i get stuck and not able to understand how i set my layout, whether with Relative / Linear Layout so that it give me same result in all size of android devices except tablets.
I hope you understood the problem, support of all density, around 500-600 images with different shapes, which layout to use and one more thing .apk size is also big matter for me as there are other lots of images other than for this game.
Please read the Screen Supports for the better understanding.
Use configuration qualifiers as explain in that Document for the Different Layout. And Also put the XML file with in that layout drawable directory.
that help me. So it will be also helpful to you.
Be free to comment if you have any dought.
Edited
You can set the layout for the different screen support as like below:
See the Image Below:
I am currently writing a remote control program to control a robot on all android devices.
I am trying to display the layout to fill the screen fully on different sizes. My first try was on a samsung 10.1' tablet and it was working well but when I port it to smaller devices like 4.3' the layout goes wrong. I am thinking of creating several layouts to match with different screen sizes but how do I check which layout to set according to screen sizes?
I have tried getwidth and getheight but it only works after you have set the layout.
Please give me a short sample code if possible as I am very new to this.
If there are any other better ways please advice me on it.
Please note that I am using API level 8, android 2.2.
Go through this and this. Basically, you create layout for various screen, each with same name. They are put in different folders (each named according to factors like- landscape, portrait, screen density and screen size). OS will decide on it's own about which layout to use.
This is great article about that. But in overall, never expect the screen to be any static size. But if you're deciding to create layout for each size, you don't have to worry about choosing the best layout, android will do it for you if you provide multiple versions of same layout.
You do not have to check the screen dimensions. Just create your layouts, and Android will automatically pick the correct one for your screen size, orientation, API level, etc. See here for more details: http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html
I have just finished designing my android app and when I tried changing the resolutions, to check if my app looks the same for all devices, I could not notice that the app's design is twisted in all of the resolutions with the exception of the resolution I design for.
Long story short: What can I do so my app will look the same for all resolutions and devices?
Well, there are a couple of issues you could be having but without examples of what's happening it's hard to tell where you are making the mistake.
Number one could be that you are using standard pixels instead of dip or are using absolute layouts or one of the many things mentioned in
http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html as referenced by both hardsky and bos.
Another alternative could be that you are simply thinking about your layouts incorrectly. For instance defining a views padding from the left in order to center it in the screen will totally fail when put on any screen with doesn't end up having dimensions which pan out to 320x480dip. Try to ensure that you are always defining your view placements by their intentions directly rather than a secondary attribute which pans out to be the same on standard resolutions.
May be different layouts for different resolutions?
http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html
I'm finishing off an Android app, all that remains is to adapt the UI layouts and graphics for multiple devices. I need particular elements placed in particular positions on the screen.
The Android docs explain how the multiple screen resolutions and sizes are classified, and explain the resource tagging system.
For example, both WVGA800 (480x800) and WVGA854 (480x854) are classified as normal high density screens. To cater for these you're asked to create a folder called "layout" (already present for "normal") and "drawable-hdpi".
The problem is this does nothing to differentiate two devices of the same classification, even if you use "dp" units. How can you provide layouts/drawables for WGA800 and for WGA854 separately?
The ratios are sufficiently different that the user easily notices bad scaling, and this is exacerbated by my need for things like a score and timer to appear in a particular place against a background image.
The same problem applies to the pairs {WQVGA400 (240x400), WQVGA432 (240x432)} and {WVGA800 (480x800), WVGA854 (480x854)}. How can you provide layout/drawables for WQVA400 and for WQGA432?
I think you're on the road to hell.
Android runs on an enormous variety of devices, more every week, and many formats don't exist yet but will introduce new variables. So even if you succeed, one new device with a slightly different screen size, and your app will fail.
It's a mistake to design for Android using specific screen resolutions, and is similar to the issues you'd find if you forced all pages to be the exact same size on the web, it rarely works well (e.g. even a tidy fixed-width site will fail miserably on mobile devices).
Android has been designed to support all this variation, but if you try to get pixel-perfect absolute-positioned rendering on every screen size you are swimming against the tide. It is likely to be very painful, very time consuming and expensive, and likely to ultimately fail. Even if you succeed, how on earth will you test it on all these screen variants? It sounds like testing hell too.
I STRONGLY recommend you accept you cannot do everything as exactly as you need to, and instead look at how to use ways of rendering objects fluidly, relative to each other, so the app looks good in all the different variations, using the different layouts for each group of resolutions to improve the experience on different size screens.
YES, that's possible:
First you have to create a instance of the display-class.
After that you get the display's width and heigth.
Then you can check each resolution in a loop, by using the if operator and set the image you want.
Example:
ImageView iview=(ImageView)findViewById(R.id.imageView1);
//here are the Bitmaps optimized for each screen resolution
Bitmap[] bitmaps={BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.drawable.icwvga800),BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getResources(), R.drawable.icwvga854),(...)};
// In this list all supported screensizes are defined
int[][] possibleScreenSolutions={{480,800},{480,854},{240,400},{240,432},{480,800},{480,854}};
Display display = ((WindowManager) getSystemService(WINDOW_SERVICE)).getDefaultDisplay();
int[] ScreenSolution={display.getWidth(),display.getHeight()};
// Compare the real screen solution with the all supported ones
for(int i=0;i<possibleScreenSolutions.length;i++){
if((ScreenSolution[0]==possibleScreenSolutions[i][0])&&(ScreenSolution[1]==possibleScreenSolutions[i][1])){
iview.setImageBitmap(bitmaps[i]);// set the image
}
}
I agree with Ollie C: It's too confusing to check all resolutions, but It's at least possible.
I've tested it allready: It works.
Further to the answer/comments elsewhere on this page, I'd like to post another answer to my own question drawing attention to the type of screen resources that can be introduced. I'm not convinced this is made clear in the Android docs, but so far as drawables are concerned you can add screen size tags to drawable files on top of the dpi tag.
For example, adding a folder called drawable-large-mdpi is valid and devices with large screens and medium resolution will pull resources from here if they can. Warning though, switching the order of the tags matters: declaring drawable-mdpi-large is an error.