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Setting a controls height to "match_parent" makes its parent bigger?

I am attempting to make a card view with some text and an image inside it.
I want the card view to be just big enough for the textviews which each can wrap to multiple lines so I want the card to scale based on the text, I also want the image to fill the height of the card whatever it may be.
So I set the card view and the linear layout containing the textviews height to wrap_content, and the image views height to match_parent.
However setting the images to match_parent makes the whole card bigger meaning its much bigger than needed for the text?
Is there any way around this or some alternative method to achieve the same effect?
EXTRA INFORMATION:
I think I know why this is happening, Its because the image views desired size based on the size of the image is bigger than the card so if the cards height is match_parent it will get as big as its parent allows until it reaches the size of the original image. Because the height of its parent is wrap_content it lets the image view get that big. I'm still no wiser on how to stop this happening though other than scaling down the image but this would mean it gets pixelated?

So what ended up working for this was to have both items in a relative layout and then align the image view to the top and bottom of the linear layout containing the text kinda like this:
<RelativeLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content">
<ImageView
android:layout_width="80dp"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_alignTop="#id/text"
android:layout_alignBottom="#id/text"/>
<LinearLayout
android:id="#+id/text"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:orientation="vertical">
<TextView
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_width="match_parent"/>
<TextView
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_width="match_parent"/>
<TextView
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_width="match_parent"/>
<TextView
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_width="match_parent"/>
</LinearLayout>
</RelativeLayout>

I don’t fully understand your problem but maybe you can do something like this
<LinearLayout
android:id="#+id/layout_Parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:orientation="vertical">
<LinearLayout
android:id="#+id/layout_ImageView"
android:layout_height="0dp"
android:layout_weight="1"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:orientation="vertical">
</LinearLayout>
<LinearLayout
android:id="#+id/layout_Text"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:orientation="vertical" >
</LinearLayout>
</LinearLayout>
This way the ImageView will only take the space left for it depending of the text.

wrap_content for ListView height and width

I would like to restrict the height and width of a ListView, wrapping the height based on the number of children's and wrapping the width based on width of list view row.
So far, I have been able to restrict the height of the ListView. The code I'm using for restricting height is:
listview.setLayoutParams(new linealayout.layoutparams(LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, 0,1));
How can I also restrict the width?

I hope you should be more specific about your desired screen look/view
But when it comes to listview I would say never use 20,30 dp to set width and height just use weight and wrap_content to make it flexible.
see below code example this may help you
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:gravity="center">
<ListView
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:id="#+id/listView1"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_weight="1"></ListView>
<Button
android:text="Button"
android:id="#+id/button1"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"></Button>
</LinearLayout>
let me know if you still have any trouble to get this one.

list item ignoring set height, using wrap_content instead

I have a problem with my list item layouts that i cannot understand. I set the height of a list item to 70dp but if i only have content with a total height of 40dp it will automatcally just ignore the value i set with android:layout_height and instead use what seems to be wrap_content as the height.
If i use the exakt same layout outside of a list it works as intended.
below is the layout of a list item from one of my lists.
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_height="70dip"
android:layout_width="fill_parent">
<TextView android:id="#+id/name"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
style="#style/NormalText"/>
<TextView android:id="#+id/description"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
style="#style/VerySmallLightText"/></LinearLayout>
Editted my xml to reflect my code better. i have some of there attributes in style, that is why i accidently made a typo when tying it in manually here.

Have you tried layout_height of the linear layout instead of just the height?
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_height="70dp"*
android:layout_width="fill_parent">

your linearlayout attribute the following
android:height = '70dip' is it can passing the IDE checking?

Android layout weight problem

friends,
i have written following layout code and buttons to be displayed on screen equally but it not seems to work any one guide me what mistake am i doing?
![<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
>
<LinearLayout
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:orientation="horizontal"
android:background="#color/color_panel_background"
>
<ImageButton
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:id="#+id/currentLocation"
android:layout_weight="1"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:src="#drawable/current_location_icon"
/>
<ImageButton
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:id="#+id/searchCity"
android:layout_weight="1"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:src="#drawable/search_icon"
/>
<ImageButton
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:id="#+id/home"
android:layout_weight="1"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:src="#drawable/home_icon"
/>
</LinearLayout>
</RelativeLayout>][2]

The drawable for the middle button is obviously bigger than the other two. You set the height of the buttons with wrap_content, so the middle button gets bigger. Weight has nothing to do with this. Its only defining how much space the item takes when you use fill_parent.
Easiest way to fix this is either changing the layout_height to a fixed value (use dp as unit)
or change the size of your drawables making the images all the same size to begin with.
Thumbs up for the way you asked the question. Screenshot and relevant code. Wish everybody would do that :)

Change android:layout_height from "wrap_content" to some constant if you want them to have equal height.

change your linear layout height to some constant and
change object layout_height within the linear layout to fill_parent

in Horizontal: if you set weight for child view then set with = 0dp
in Vertical: if you set weight for child view then set height = 0dp

How to make a view's size depend on another view's size?

I'm making a UI designed as shown below. View 1 is an image, when showing different pictures, its size will be different. The sizes of view 2 and view 3 are depend on View 1. How to define the xml file to make this happen?
ps: The design came from client so I can't change it.

better use RelativeLayout to achieve this task....Make appropriate changes and use it
<RelativeLayout
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content">
<ImageView
android:id="#+id/view1"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>
<TextView
android:layout_below="#id/view1"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>
<TextView
android:layout_toRightof="#id/view1"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"/>
</RelativeLayout>

I think LinearLayout is better here, because the easiest way to set the appropriate sizes is to use layout_weight. If you set a non-zero weight for only one element in a LinearLayout, then it will take all the remaining space. layout_weight divides the remaining spaces in the ratio of the given weights. It calculates the size of the remaining space after setting the given layout_width-s (or height) first, then it will override these sizes. When you want to divide the whole screen into fixed ratios, not the remaining spaces after some initial setting, then you should first set the size of the elements to 0. So set the size of View1 to wrap_content, and all the other sizes in the appropriate directions to 0 (fill parent in the other direction), and use layout_weight=1.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="horizontal"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent">
<LinearLayout
android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width ="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="fill_parent">
<ImageView
android:id="#+id/view1"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:src=.../>
<SomeKindOfView
android:id="#+id/view2"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="0px"
android:layout_weight="1"/>
</LinearLayout>
<AnotherView
android:id="#+id/view3"
android:layout_width="0px"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:layout_weight="1"/>
</LinearLayout>