Develop Reference

Android, different layout for 10.1 and 9.7 inch displays

I've developed an app for an specific 10.1 inch display (2560x1600) and my layout files are written to fit that specific resolution.
Now I need to make the same app to work with an 9.7 inch display (2048x1536).
It's the first time I have to do a thing like this and I don't know which is the right approach. Using the actual layout file in the new tablet is a bit of a mess, nothing fits correctly, is like making a zoom in the old one.
I've read a bit about creating folders for different layouts, but the problem is that if I create a folder "layout-sw720dp" both tablets use the same layout, which I don't want to.
Is the "different layout files" the right approach? If so, how can I specify a layout for an specific "resolution" or whatsoever?
Is there other way to approach this?
Thanks!

In Android, there are different types of attribute qualifiers which helps us to design the app for different types/resolutions of devices. However in this particular case here, both the resolutions would come under the same attributes for almost all the qualifier types.
They both would come under the xhdpi bracket for xlarge devices. So you cannot use these qualifiers. But the one thing that is not same will be the shortest width qualifier for the two resolutions.
The shortest width for 2560 x 1600 would be 800dp and shortest width for 2048 x 1536 would be 768dp. So you can use the layout-sw<>dp attribute to distinguish the two devices.
for 10.1 inch display (2560 x 1600) : layout-sw800dp
for 9.7 inch display (2048 x 1536) : layout-sw768dp
When you use the layout-sw720dp folder, both the devices will take the same folder as the shortest width of both devices are greater than 720. Check this developer doc section (especially the table) for more information.

In the app folder of your application in android studio , go to the res-> layout, right click on that select New -> Layout resource file. on the new resource file window ,give file name dimens.
on the available qualifiers select dimension and push it into the chosen qualifier and specify the dimension as 2048x1536. you can use this file to specify the layout for tablet of dimension 2048x1536.

If you layouts are properly designed layout-sw720dp should handle both tablets flawlessly.
how can I specify a layout for an specific "resolution" or whatsoever?
For this part there are 2 types of width prefixes. layout-wXXX is for devices whose width is exactly XXX, nothing more, nothing less. Whereas, layout-swXXX is for devices whose width is at least XXX.
Again, well designed layout-sw720dp folder should cover both your needs.

Android : Screen Size

I'm working on android application and got in trouble of multiple screen support. I developed the app for 1080x1920 and when i tested the app on my friends Micromax Unite 2 with resolution of 480x800, it was something else. So i made two folders in the layout as:
layout-1080x1920
layout-480x800
thinking that the 480x800 device will pick up the layout-480x800 folder. But no it used the layout-1080x1920. So what should i do? So that the device having resolution of 480x800 works on layout-480x800

I suggest naming the folders as such:
layout-sw600dp
Where sw600dp means Screen Width 600dp. This layout folder will be used by devices with screen widths of 600dp or more (typically all 7-10 inch tablets, or just very dense screen). And when you are targeting for the phone use just the layout folder without any specified criteria. All phones not matching the sw600dp will use the default layout resources. Possibly also consider using
layout-sw600dp-port
if you need to use specific layouts for portrait orientation, likewise you can do
layout-sw600dp-land
if you wanted to specified layouts for landscape.
The link cricket_007 provided is where I learned this information
Note that 1080x1920 equates to about 540 x 960 dp in dp measurement, which is why I suggested to use the particular 600dp for width

giving the folder names pixel according to android screen support dev page. Even if you know all possible resolutions for every device, the android system takes those *xml files/drawables etc specified by their DPI, not PX. Those dpi resolutions still can change on runtime, such as, when your activity uses a tool bar (which is not part of your dpi resolution). Name your folders layout-xlarge, layout-large, layout-normal, layout-small for *xml layouts. I suggest to put 4 different xml files with same name in each of them and try it again for different devices.

Different layout for 5 and 4 inch Android devices

I have an Android application with one layout file. I have different layout files for different densities, i.e., layout-hdpi, layout-mdpi, etc. I also have different dimens files in corresponding value directories (values-mdpi, values-hdpi, etc).
My problem is that I would like to use different layouts for 4 and 5 inch screen devices. I am testing on two physical a 4 inch and a 5 inch and both devices use the layout from the /res/layout folder and the dimens file from the /res/values-hdpi/ folder (in other words, they use the same resources).
Is there a way to make the 4 inch device use a different dimens.xml file - if not automatically, can this be done programmatically?

You can use something like layout-sw320dp or similar. This will differentiate layouts based on minimum display width.
Here is much more about it:
https://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html#NewQualifiers

Density is not related to size, they tell you how many pixels there are in on square inch of screen, not how may inches of space there are in the screen. you should use size related resources. for example layout-w500dp folder would be used for screens that have at least 500dp of width.this should help

The process of creating Android layout files

I am in the process of creating layouts for a new application and I am interested to know how you are usually approach this process.
Obviously it's a very general question, but I think we can get a lot of ideas from different developers' perspectives. As creating perfect layouts in Android, in my opinion, is one of the most difficult tasks in the app development process, I think the answers can be of value.
The assumption is that we want to support all device sizes with the least number of XML files, without compromising the application design quality.
In my case the designer of the app designed it with Galaxy S3 dimensions in mind (720 x 1280px).
Considering the 3:4:6:8 ratio -
What will be the base device you'll do the design for, so one layout file will look good on all normal size devices?
How would you handle the difference in device dimensions, thinking in dp -
Eg.
480 X 800 hdpi = 320 X 533dp
320 X 480 mdpi = 320 X 480dp
720 x 1280 xhdpi = 360 X 640dp
How will you still use the extra dp, so there won't be to many empty spaces, without making the layout not appropriate for 320 X 480 device?
When the designer marks a margin of 20px, how would you interpret it in the xml?
Taking into consideration he designed it on a 720 x 1280px canvas.

Start with some screen size as your base target device for e.g. 4.7 inch (hdpi) and create a single layout for default screens in layout folder and declare dimensions in dimens.xml in values folder.
Next, let's say you want your layouts for a 7" device, create values-sw320dp folder for 7" in portrait orientation and declare separate dimensions in dimens.xml in this folder.
Next, let's say you want your layouts for a 10" device, create values-sw720dp folder for 10" in portrait orientation and declare separate dimensions in dimens.xml in this folder.
PS: For landscape orientation, add -land in the end of folder names.
Next, let's say you have new devices such as xhdpi and xxhdpi devices, you can create values-xhdpi and values-xxhdpi folders.
Since you have defined dimensions in values folder, when you run the App, most of the dimensions will be used from here only. And you can add/update the dimensions in respective folders for screen-size and resolutions on which there is any mismatch.
Also, if you have got separate drawables for various size like mdpi, hdpi, etc you can place them under drawable-mdpi, drawable-hdpi, etc.
The Android system will take care of loading correct resources at run-time.
Note: On Android versions < 3.2, the folder naming was little different, you can refer that here.
Hope this helps.

Android automatically scales layouts to fit the current device. One way to make the solution more elegant would be to create separate folders drawable-ldpi, drawable-mdpi, drawable-hdpi, drawable-xhdpi and drawable-xxhdpi to hold the drawable resources - this is to make sure the same resource does not get used across all the different resolutions where it might not be so clear.
Do not use px (pixels) for measurements in the layout file - use dip (or density independent pixels) which allows to scale according to device pixel density.
The other extreme would be to have different layouts for different resolutions though this is is not advisable.

In Android, image sizing while supporting multiple screen sizes

In my android app, I want to support multiple screen sizes. I realize that for Android "large" means a lot of the current phone screens at 480 x 800 pixels as well as a 7" tablet like the Nexus 7 which has 800 x 1280 pixels. But I'd like to create 2 separate layouts for those two display sizes. I've found that rather than using res/layout-large, using res/layout-h800dp gives me greater control of which size screen uses what layout. (I'm using a portrait orientation, hence h800dp) The problem I'm having is this: sometimes the h800dp layout uses the images in the drawable-mdpi folder, and sometimes it uses the images in the drawable-hdpi folder. I'm using the same syntax in the xml to call the images: `android:src="#drawable/image", but in one activity it looks in the mdpi drawable folder, and in the next activity, it looks in the ldpi drawable folder. Is there any way to get the h800dp layouts to always look in the ldpi folder?

This link explains nearly everything regarding screen properties (DPI, physical size, resolution, etc.)
What you may be able to do is specify folders like layout-large-hdpi, layout-large-mdpi, and layout-large-ldpi.
Experiment with blending these types together in folder names.