Develop Reference

What is the best approach for this nested android layout view

I'm trying to create the layout part of my app. I wanna know the best approach of going about this section.
I'm thinking of going with something like this, but i think its too much for just displaying three elements

This is a common practice for displaying similar layout. If you want, you can replace all nested layout to ConstraintLayout. It can improve code extensibility, but it can slightly slow down the rendering speed of the UI.
As a result, I think your current variant is the most optimal.

Yeah, thats fine but for the ImageView you will also need to nest it inside a CardView
<androidx.cardview.widget.CardView
android:id="#+id/one"
android:layout_width="200dp"
android:layout_height="200dp"
app:cardCornerRadius="12dp">
<ImageView
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:src="#drawable/beach_bg_placeholder" />
</androidx.cardview.widget.CardView>

Android nested layout

I am developing my first Android app. Although I have 15 years of Java software development experience, Android is new to me. My desired look is a background image with other images on top of it, as well as labels and phone numbers. It seems like the best way to accomplish this is a Linear Layout for the background image, with a nested layout for the other fields on top of that. I have searched online and cannot find any sample code on how to accomplish this. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

What are you using to develop? If you are you using Eclipse with the Android SDK this is super easy. Put the desired picture in the appropriate drawable folder, go to the graphical view of layout that corresponds to your activity, on the right side of the screen there is a list of all the properties, find background, then select your picture from drawables. You can also do this from the xml using android:background="#drawable/yourPic". This way you don't have to worry about having things layered on top of it.

I think you should go through followings:
1. http://phandroid.com/2011/05/11/10-tips-for-android-ui-design/
2. http://mobile.tutsplus.com/series/android-user-interface-design/
3. http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2011/06/30/designing-for-android/
4. http://android-developers.blogspot.in/2011/09/thinking-like-web-designer.html

If I got, something like this can work:
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent" >
<stuff>
<RelativeLayout
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent" >
<stuff>
</RelativeLayout>
<stuff>
</RelativeLayout>
I used it in an app, and made the trick.

First of all, RelativeLayout is the best layout to use. It depends on your design.
If your design says to keep all the views either vertically OR horizontally, you can use LinearLayouts in between.
My suggested way:
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent" >
<LinearLayout android:id="#+id/layout1"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_parent"
android:orientation="Horizontal">
<View1 />
<View2 />
</LinearLayout>
</LinearLayout android:id="#+id/layout2"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_parent"
android:orientation="Vertical"
android:layout_below="#id/layout1">
<View3 />
<View4 />
</LinearLayout>
</RelativeLayout>
Which will yield you something like this

How to split screen like ipad in android?

i want to make application in android Tablets like in ipad which have spliting screen,
How i can do that ? if any body have idea please send me!
Thank you in advance.

This is achievable using the Fragments API. Fragments are available since Android 3.0, but there's also a Support Library that lets you use these API's from Android 1.6. Hope this helps.

Using fragments: check http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/android/android-compatibility-working-with-fragments/
it's a tutorial with sample application that uses the compatibility package (allows you to support from API 4), it may help

this is not a 'feature' limited to iOS
you can easily do this in Android by using two vertical LinearLayouts and assigning them equal weight - to split the screen into half or Different weights to achieve something like the image you provided.
And of course, there are a lot of other ways to do that.

This will be the fragment xml file. then you have to write two xml files for CustomerList(Left Part) and CustomerInfo(Right Part). your activity should extends FragmentActivity. try with this:::
<fragment class="ui.misc.Customers$CustomerList"
android:id="#+id/customerlistfragmant" android:layout_weight="1"
android:layout_width="550px"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
/>
<fragment class="ui.misc.Customers$CustomerInfo"
android:id="#+id/customerinfofragmant" android:layout_weight="1"
android:layout_width="350px" android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
<FrameLayout android:id="#+id/regscreentwo" android:layout_weight="1"
android:layout_width="0px"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
/>
</LinearLayout>

you can use the APIs described here: Fragments API

Alternative to nested weights with LinearLayouts

I want to achieve the following:
It works with the following layout:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:orientation="horizontal">
<LinearLayout
android:layout_weight="3"
android:layout_width="0dp"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:orientation="vertical" >
<fragment
android:name="com.bobjohn.DetailsMenuFragment"
android:id="#+id/detailsMenuFragment"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="0dp"
android:layout_weight="6"
/>
<fragment
android:name="com.bobjohn.SummaryFragment"
android:id="#+id/summaryFragment"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="0dp"
android:layout_margin="10dp"
android:layout_weight="4"/>
</LinearLayout>
<TextView
android:layout_width="0dp"
android:layout_weight="7"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:text="Test Text"/>
</LinearLayout>
However, I get the warning about nested weights being bad for performance. I understand the error but I don't know how to express this layout in another way. What is the alternative?

There are NEW updates in SUPPORT Libs, Please check Accepted Answer too.
Updated Answer :-
Whenever you create any view, It calls it's measure events to know the height width of view on the screen, If you are not using WRAP_CONTENT or FILL_PARENT or FIXEDSIZE and using Weights then it's becoming more complex to render your layout on the screen.
Means,
First your main layout is rendered and calls it's measure..then based on weight all child views calls it's measure events recursively so it consumes more time to load.
So, One should avoid nesting of weights.
Alternative to Nested weights :-
You should consider using different layout and drawable folder specific to different sizes. Write your views in your XML with specific height-width OR make it wrap_content and use specific background images OR make it fill_parent.
I believe that as developer we may be wrong several time, but as creator Android (Lint) they may be wrong only in rare case, should listen to those warnings to make your code better.
BELOW ANSWER WAS WRITTEN WITH LACK OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT ANDROID LAYOUT
AFAIK, I think you have done right, this is the best written XML for the same.
You have used the weight attribute perfectly as it should have been used. You just ignore the Warnings.
What is the alternative?
I have coded all my XML in the same way in my projects so This has been the best alternative to me,So I dont think there is any other alternative to CODE the XML to get Such layout until and unless you use RelativeLayout as parent layout with some fixed sizes height and width of the child views. Still I advice you keep it as it is.
I would have deleted this answer as I still don't completely know Android Layouts but keeping it to receive new comments and answer based on this

Yes we have the alternative for nested LinearLayout weight by android's percent support library
Code and concept HERE !
GitHub Project HERE !
Consider this simple layout where I have totally avoided weight property of LinearLayout
<android.support.percent.PercentRelativeLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<TextView
android:id="#+id/fifty_huntv"
android:layout_width="0dp"
android:layout_height="0dp"
android:background="#ff7acfff"
android:text="20% - 50%"
android:textColor="#android:color/white"
app:layout_heightPercent="20%"
app:layout_widthPercent="50%" />
<TextView
android:layout_width="0dp"
android:layout_height="0dp"
android:layout_toRightOf="#id/fifty_huntv"
android:background="#ffff5566"
android:text="80%-50%"
app:layout_heightPercent="80%"
app:layout_widthPercent="50%"
/>
</android.support.percent.PercentRelativeLayout>
Really awesome !!!

I think (and I will probably be flamed for this), but again I think my phone has a quad core processor to rival (if not utterly destroy) most peoples home PC's.
I also think this kind of hardware capability is the future of phones.
So I come to a conclusion, that as long as you are not getting carried away with nesting (in MHO a layout should never be more then 4 levels deep, and if it is you are probably doing it wrong), your phone could care less about having weights.
There are many things you can do that will have a much more far reaching effect on performance, then worrying about your processor doing some extra math.
(please note that I am being slightly humorous, and so not to take anything too seriously from this post, other then the idea that there are other things you should optimize first, and that worrying about a 2-3 level deep weight is not helping your health)

Android Layout Issue

Hi I'm having a daft problem with my android application.
Currently it looks like this:
Is there a way of making the button go to the bottom in the middle? I've tried messing around but same effect. Also tried changing the fill_parent/wrap_content, relative/linear layouts and gravities.
This is the screenshot of the .xml file
many thanks.

There are a couple things you can do to get this, with the relative layout you're using this would work. Add these lines to your button section
android:layout_below="#+id/android:empty"
android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
android:layout_alignParentCenter="true"

Add these two attributes to your Button
android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
and these one to your textview:
android:layout_above="#id/insertion"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
Read the API reference here:
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/RelativeLayout.LayoutParams.html

May be you want to use a linear layout instead of the relative one...
With the LinearLayout you can place your item without thinking on their relative position.
You can place a vertical linear layout and inside it another layout for the list of reminders.
<LinearLayout android:orientation="vertical">
<ListView android:width="fill_parent"android:weight="2" />
<Button android:width="wrap_content" android:weight="1" />
</LinearLayout>
With weight option, you can choose to make the Button to be painted before the ListView.
EDIT: Reading other answers, I'm considering if you really need a RelativeLayout to place a button under a listview. I think you should learn how to handle simple view before to start using something more complex. If LinearLayout solve your problem, why don't use it? This is a personal observation...