Develop Reference

Have elements equally span entire width / height of their RelativeLayout

I have, say three buttons i would like to list below one another in a layout. Depending on the device, screen size, pixel density, orientation and so on, i would like the buttons to span the entire height of their parent layout. The buttons each have a fixed height (dp), so the spanning is more likely concerning the space between the buttons.
I saw several questions on various forums regarding how a LinearLayout is supposedly a fix for this problem, by nesting a layout for each element, having the layout span. I would very much like to avoid nesting layouts, and I'm using a RelativeLayout as of now, so if there is any way to go about it with this type of layout it will be of great help! :)
Additionally, I would like the top and bottom button to "touch" the parent layout border at the top and bottom, and the last (or rest) button to fill out the rest of the vertical space equally.
Thank you in advance.

I'm not entirely sure what you wish to achieve, but you should be able to do this using a LinearLayout & weights (so you don't have to nest multiple layouts).
If you want the 3 buttons to take up the entire parent of the screen just add a weight to each for example:
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<Button
android:id="#+id/button_one"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="0dp"
android:layout_weight="1"/>
<Button
android:id="#+id/button_two"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="0dp"
android:layout_weight="1"/>
<Button
android:id="#+id/button_three"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="0dp"
android:layout_weight="1"/>
</LinearLayout>

Try to set to topButton a field in XML:
android:layout_alignTop="true";
Try to set to middleButton a field in XML:
android:layout_centerVertical="true";
Try to set to bottomButton a field in XML:
android:layout_alignBottom="true";

Moving items on Android layout to other side of screen

I have a layout in my app that has four image buttons. I want the last two image buttons, the reload and stop buttons to be on the right side of the screen, with empty space between the two buttons. How would I achieve this? I've heard of Space but that was added in API Level 14 and I'd like to maintain my minSdkVersion of 8.

You could probably use a RelativeLayout to achieve this by getting advantage of the layout properties in the xml. You could align the X button/image to the bottom left of the parent and then align the refresh button to the right of the X button.
Link to useful information - http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/layout/relative.html

Put all the 4 buttons inside a Relative layout.
Each 2 buttons should have a linear layout parent.
1st linear layout should have alignParentLeft = true attribute, while the 2nd linear layout(container of the reload and stop) should have alignParentRight = true attribute.
Or you can simply put it all together on the relative layout..
then align it manually. Use to rightOf, to LeftOf attributes.
Hope this helps! :)

create a linear layout and add these two buttons into the linear layout with orientation horizontal..
and position the linearlayout to the right side of the parent layout which might be relative layout with alignParentRight = "true" - hope it helps.. if you dont get it tell me to provide codes ??
EDIT 1 : CODE
<RelativeLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" >
<LinearLayout
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true" >
<Button
android:id="#+id/button1"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Button" />
<Button
android:id="#+id/button2"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Button" />
</LinearLayout>
</RelativeLayout>
post this relatively to the layout you already have and remove the two buttons you want to align to the right replace it with the two buttons here..thats it.. let me know whats upp

Fill Parent on Horizontal List Row with Margin

Okay so I have a horizontal Relative Layout on a ListView and I want a margin between the different Rows on the ListView but I have one problem. I have a button that is being pushed to the far right and I want the click zone to be as big as possible. If there was no margin on the root element of relative layout I would be fine and my button would take up the entire height of the row. But the problem is because there is margin there is an opportunity for the user to click above and below the button where the margin is to trigger the OnItemClick event which isn't the desired functionality of the button which could get frustrating at times.
Example:
<RelativeLayout android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:orientation="horizontal"
android:layout_marginTop="10dp"
android:layout_marginBottom="10dp"
android:layout_marginLeft="5dp">
<ImageButton
android:id="#+id/list_button"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:src="#drawable/btn"
android:background="#android:drawable/list_selector_background" />
</RelativeLayout>
Any help would be greatly appreciated obviously its possible I just can't see it sadly.

One way around this is to wrap the ImageButton in a transparent layoutview (relative, linear, frame - depending on your needs) that does take up the whole space (i.e. android:layout_width and android:layout_height are fill_parent). Then add the same click handler to the outer layout as you do for the button.

Designing a complex android UI with animation

I've to design a UI for an Android app where i've 10 vertical tiles containing image and text(the 2 big boxes in the picture) and on clicking a tile, it disappears and is replaced by scrollable gridview containing 6 elements(shown in the centre of figure below) on the same page. (shown by an animation)
Here is a snapshot of the view I'm trying to explain. This images shows only 2 out of 10 tiles and a gridview which appears on click Each of the white box contains image and text. I'm not good at designing, so a detailed answer of implementing this would be appreciated. Thanks.

There is not much details in your question, even the picture does not clarify everything, but here is a stab at it.
Not sure what you mean when you say the tiles "expand" further, do you expect to see the six tiles in the middle to appear at that time or are they always there? if they appear, would that be animated?
To achieve the picture you have, you should probably get a RelativeLayout at the top level.
That's just because you have this date TextView on the top right and the handle to a SlidingDrawer at the bottom. You can set the background of that RelativeLayout with your wallpaper theme and I guess the blue bar on top if that's static.
Then inside this top-leve RelativeLayout you have a LinearLayout with an horizontal orientation. This one will contain the three "windows" on your picture.
In that horizontal LinearLayout, first you have another LinearLayout with a vertical orientation, then a ViewPager and then another vertical LinearLayout similar to the first one (not sure how the right part is different from the left one or that is supposed to be a complete mirror... ?).
So in summary:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout
android:id="#+id/top_level"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:layout_width="fill_parent">
<TextView
android:id="#+id/date_text"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:paddingTop="..." // fill in some space to offset from the top of the screen
android:paddingRight="..." // same thing to keep it off the right edge
/>
<LinearLayout
android:layout_height="..." // set the height of your content in the center of your screen
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_below="#+id/date_text"
android:orientation="horizontal" >
<LinearLayout
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:orientation="vertical" >
< add here some of the stuff you have above your tile like that RSS icon and so on />
<ListView
android:id="#+id/tile_list"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"/>
</LinearLayout>
<ViewPager
android:id="#+id/pager"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:layout_width="0dp"
android:layout_weight="1" // so that will fill the remaining space between the left and the right parts
/>
<LinearLayout
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:orientation="vertical" >
< add here some of the stuff you have above your tile like that RSS icon and so on />
<ListView
android:id="#+id/tile_list"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"/>
</LinearLayout>
</LinearLayout>
<SlidingDrawer
android:id="#+id/drawer"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:handle="#+id/drawer_handle"
android:content="#+id/drawer_contents">
<ImageView
android:id="#+id/drawer_handle"
android:src="#drawable/image for the tab..."
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content">
</ImageView>
<Another Layout for the content of the drawer
android:id="#+id/drawer_contents"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
>
....
</Close that layout>
</SlidingDrawer>
</RelativeLayout>
From there, there is still quite a few things to fill up and some code to write to fill the lists of tiles (on the left and right), handle when the user click on an item, and then also display the content of the ViewPager in the middle of the screen. You'll probably want to use a GridLayout in each page there.
If you need to hide that ViewPager until the user click on some tile, you can set the visibility to hidden and change it in your code.
UPDATE
Now there is more information on how this moves......
OK, so keep the top level RelativeLayout with the date and the SlidingDrawer at the bottom.
In the middle part, you can use the HorizontalListView that was put together by this person: How can I make a horizontal ListView in Android?, the code and instructions and example can be found here: http://www.dev-smart.com/archives/34
Then you need to create your own Adapter to populate that List. You can base it off the BaseAdapter (that decision is more dependent on how your images / information is stored).
In the getView function of that Adapter, can have a layout where both the collapsed and expanded views are combined into one FrameLayout, but only one is visible at a time. It will look like something like this:
<FrameLayout
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="fill_parent" // assuming the HorizontalListView is set with the right height
>
<LinearLayout
android:id="#+id/collapsed_view"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:orientation="vertical" >
< add here some of the stuff you have above your tile like that RSS icon and so on />
</LinearLayout>
<ViewPager
android:id="#+id/expanded_view"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:layout_width="0dp"
android:layout_weight="1" // so that will fill the remaining space between the left and the right parts
android:visibility="gone"
/>
</FrameLayout>
In the list adapter, you will need to set proper tags to the different views, so when a user clicks on one image, you know which one was clicked. To expand one view, you change the visibility of the LinearLayout to gone and the one of the ViewPager to visible.
If there should only be only one expanded at a time, you can have a state variable in your Adapter to say which one it is and set the visibility properties correctly for all the views in the list. Then you call invalidate on the ListView to have it refreshed.
There is quite a bit of code to write to do all this, but if you keep it organized, it should not be too bad....

android:layout_gravity effect in main.xml?

I have 4 buttons in a horizontal linear layout. I'd like the right edge of the 4th button to align with the right edge of the linear layout (equal to screen width) I've tried using android:layout_gravity="right" but it doesn't work - the right button is to the right of the 3rd one but not right aligned . Am I missing something obvious?
main.xml with only the relevant layout params only is:
<LinearLayout
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:orientation="vertical">
<LinearLayout
android:orientation="horizontal"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content">
<Button
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:layout_width="wrap_content">
<Button SAME LAYOUT AS BUTTON 1>
<Button SAME LAYOUT AS BUTTON 1>
<Button
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_gravity="right" />
</LinearLayout>
</LinearLayout>
This doesn't seem to match the stated behaviour for layout_gravity in the SDK reference :"Defines how to place the view, both its x- and y-axis, within its parent view group."

I know this isn't really the proper answer to your question, but you should really consider using RelativeLayout instead of LinearLayout. It scales better to different phone screen resolutions, and you can place the buttons in the correct order by using the layout_toRightOf and layout_alignParentRight attributes in your XML (or layout_above, layout_alignParentTop, etc.). Using gravity in a linear layout won't really behave as you expect because Android is still attempting to place the widgets in a fixed position.
RelativeLayout is a bit more of a pain to get working than LinearLayout, but it's worth the trouble and is also the one which Google recommends using. Once you get the hang of it, they are very convenient to work with.