Develop Reference

Using android default buttons

I found these website http://androiddrawables.com/Buttons.html where you can check the differences between Android buttons .
How can I use them? If I type R.drawables.btn_star_big_on_pressed the editor says it couldn't find the resource.
How can I use those default Android images ?
I am using 4.0.

The only way I know how to use them is:
<ImageView
android:id="#+id/imageView"
android:layout_width="48px"
android:layout_height="48px"
android:src="#android:drawable/btn_radio" />
to check available buttons type first letter after drawable/.
Then navigate to the button and you will see the selectors.

You can do something like this,
android.R.drawable.btn_star

Default resources for UI components depend on the device and platform version that your app is running on. For your button's to use them you would want to simply not declare a background resource.

My advice is that you will go to the Android SDK folder/platforms/android-##/data/res/drawable-dpi and copy the icons from there into your own res folder.

Is it possible to use fonts for Images/icons in Android

I Just know that we can use fonts for text only by using the TypeFace class. But can anyone please confirm me about images.
I have added all my custom fonts(.ttf) inside asset/fonts folder. Placed some ImageViews in their appropriate place in my app. And trying to use fonts to set images on them.
I have googled for a long time, but unfortunately unable to find any satisfied hint or help.
Can any one please help me to go forward from the current step.

Placed some ImageViews in their appropriate place in my app. And trying to use fonts to set images on them.
ImageView accepts images. Whatever set of pixels or vectors are in a font, they are not images from the standpoint of ImageView. The simplest way to display material from a custom font is through TextView, though you are welcome to implement your own Drawable and attempt to use that with an ImageView, or draw straight to the Canvas (e.g., in a custom widget).

You can use font awesome. Import the android-iconify/1.0.6 jar library from http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/joanzapata/android/android-iconify/1.0.6/
and you can use IconTextView
<IconTextView
android:id="#+id/image"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:padding="10dp"
android:text="{fa-mobile}"
android:textColor="#9fd46c"
android:textSize="30dp"
/>

Android: using image instead of text on a button

I've been working on my android calculator and i can't seem to insert an image instead of text on a button. For example sqrt I don't want to have sqrt written on my button i want the image of the symbol on it, the same goes for x^y and alot of others. I have my custom background of the button working just fine. Thank you for your help in advance :)
EDIT:
Thats not what i wanted i did manage to get my custom button and thats fine. On my button since its a calculator button i have android:text on it saying sqrt. I want to remove that and insert another png on my button showing the symbol of the square root instead of that text. Thank you for quick responses.

<Button
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:drawableTop="#drawable/imageName"/>
You can have both text and image (or no text) when using the attribute drawableTop, drawableBottom, drawableLeft and drawableRight.
And for positioning the image how you want, consider using: paddingTop, paddingBottom, paddingLeft and paddingRight.

You can do this by ImageButton:
<ImageButton
android:id="#+id/submitEmailButton"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_gravity="right" android:layout_marginRight="15dip"
android:background="#drawable/ic_submit" />
Here ic_submit is the image you want to show as a button.

I used this tutorial and it worked perfectly for me: http://www.mkyong.com/android/android-imagebutton-selector-example/
I haven't seen your code but basically you should remove the "text" tag from your xml and it should appear the image without text then.
I don't know if that's exactly what you were looking for or not, but I reccomend you to follow the tutorial and for sure it will work for you ;)

There are a number of alternatives you can try to implement to build your SQRT button:
draw the button as a 9-patch drawable so your SQRT symbol won't get distorted;
use a RelativeLayout with a button inside and implement a selector

You can simply set background for the Button and keep its text blank.

Creating icons in application activity and making them transparent

I want to create icons as something like this image or something like on the homepage of quickr. If I use custom gridview for this as in this (of course in my case I need the text below the image ), then adding listeners to that would be difficult I guess. Should I use buttons for that with the image and text below that provided the background is transparent? If so which layout I need to use? Or is there any icon view facility in android like other views such as button and imageviews, so that we can modify as per our requirement.

You should use button for that.
<Button
android:id="#+id/btnIconName"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:drawableTop="#drawable/iconimage"
android:text="IconTitle" />
For showing icon you should use android:drawableTop and for iocnTitle use android:text
Property.
I hope my answer is helpful to you.

GridView will be the best option to do this and why dont you ask your graphics guy to add text with image.

Best way to program buttons/images

I am designing something that will have a homepage close to the Google+ android app.
I'm having trouble figuring out the best way to do this? Should I create a button with text and set the background as the image? Should I create an image with the text already programmed in the actual picture or should I program the text and picture to be buttons.
Any suggestions from you guys on past projects?

You can use a Button with text to whatever you like and then place the image for that button above the text (using android:drawableTop)like so:
<Button
android:id="#+id/imageButton"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:text="Photos"
android:drawableTop="#drawable/button_image" />
replacing buttton_image with your actual image. If you want the image in a different position (i.e. below text etc) use:
android:drawableLeft
android:drawableRight
android:drawableBottom
This would be how I would and do do it...

Since I am a newbie in android development I may be wrong but I suggest why not use a Grid View with each grid item haaving a textview and imageview.

My suggest to layout:
If you want to try something new in Android 4.0 , you can try GridLayout to layout , it can reduce the complicate of the nested layout , check out the blog about GridLayout:
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/11/new-layout-widgets-space-and-gridlayout.html

You should write Buttons this way: http://developer.android.com/resources/articles/layout-tricks-merge.html
I normally use RelativeLayout but this is not important.
Write a class myClass extends RelativeLayout and inflate the XML with
LayoutInflater.from(context).inflate(R.layout.myCustomLayout, this, true);
I think this is best practice by Google.

use a regular button and set the android:drawableTop="#drawable/icon_...." value

Having the text burnt into you image is most certainly not the way to go.
One option for you is a GridView. You could also do this through a combination of Image button and scrollview. In my opinion, GridView is best and involves the least amount of code with most flexibility.

Remember that you can replace the button's background image with a state list drawable.