Develop Reference

Android - how to add a simple footer?

I keep browsing different posts and they all have the footer try to stay on the screen.
But I want the footer to appear on every page. Some of my pages do not have a scroll, but some do. Whenever there is a scroll, I would like the footer to appear below the scroll. How can that be done?
For example, if I have this page:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
>
<ScrollView
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent" >
<LinearLayout
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
>
<TextView
android:id="#+id/page_exlain"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Some text that either extends far down or is pretty short."
android:layout_marginTop ="20dp"
/>
</LinearLayout>
</ScrollView>
</LinearLayout>
What is a good way to add a footer to this that does not necessarily appear above the fold?
Thanks!

My way of doing this is by having two linear layouts inside the parent layout. The first one is what I call the content area and will have a weight of 1, meaning it will try to take as much space it can from the parent view. The footer layout on the other hand will have no weight and will therefor remain with a height matching the content inside even if the other view (the content area) is empty.
You can add a scrollview or any other type of layout inside the content part of this layout without breaking the disposition of the two elements and without needing to worry about the position of the footer since it will always be at the bottom of the screen.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:id="#+id/main"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:orientation="vertical" >
<LinearLayout
android:id="#+id/content"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_weight="1"
android:orientation="vertical" >
</LinearLayout>
<LinearLayout
android:id="#+id/footer"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" >
</LinearLayout>
With a little content added to the prior code, you end with something like this, note that it's extremely simplified. You'll have no issues modifying it to your needs as long as you understand the weight property in place.
You just need to treat the "content" LinearLayout as if it was the parent one, inserting scrollviews or whatever your needing and forgetting about the footer. Note that if the footer is recursive, meaning you are going to be using it multiple times, you could load it in the xml directly without copying it in to all your layouts
<include layout="#layout/footer" />
Where #layout/footer is an xml file in your layouts folder with the content of the footer that you want to reuse. This is virtually the same as adding it manually but with the convenience of not having to maintain it across several files.
Hope I was of help.

Will a TableLayout supply a vertical scrollbar?

Or will I have to incorporate a ScrollView into the TableLayout? Is this even possible? I want to dynamically create any number of rows for a screen, but need the rows to be scrollable.
I've been trying in vain to get this to work using LinearLayout for too long now, and think it's time to move either to TableLayout or RelativeLayout -- any comments on the preferability of one over the other?

You can use table layout within scroll layout then it is possible.
for example,
<ScrollView
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:scrollbars="vertical" >
<LinearLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:orientation="vertical" >
</LinearLayout>
</ScrollView>
You can use table layout instead of Linear layout..

None of the "list"-style views will automatically do scrolling. LinearLayout, TableLayout, RelativeLayout, none of them do it because (like other people pointed out) it's so easy to wrap them in a ScrollView, it's just functionality that they don't need.

You have to specify a ScrollView for your TableLayout just as below:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ScrollView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:background="#ffffff"
android:layout_height="fill_parent">
<RelativeLayout
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background="#ffffff">
<TableLayout
android:id="#+id/myTableLayout"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:layout_gravity="center"
android:shrinkColumns="1"/>
</RelativeLayout>
</ScrollView>

how do I get an Android view to take up "remaining" space?

I have an activity that has a header at the top of the screen, some button elements at the bottom of the screen and then I'd like to devote the middle (whatever is left over) to a scroll view.
I know how to do everything except for how to assign a height to the ScrollView that would take into account what is above and below it and then take residence in between.
Would love to see an XML sample for how to accomplish this effect.
TIA

You can use relative layout for this.
<RelativeLayout android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent">
<LinearLayout android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:id="#+id/header">
<!--Header elements here-->
</LinearLayout>
<LinearLayout android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:alignParentBottom="true"
android:id="#+id/footer">
<!--Footer element here-->
</LinearLayout>
<ScrollView android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:layout_above="#+id/footer"
android:layout_below="#+id/header">
</ScrollView>
</RelativeLayout>

If you didn't want to switch to a RelativeLayout, I would think you could use android:layout_weight attributes to distribute screen real estate.

So in this case, you want to have Header(Top), scrollview(middle) and Buttons(Bottom), for this just take a RelativeLayout.

how to make a linear layout horizontall scrollable

My application containing different layouts.one of them is a linear layout.it's content is dynamically adding.i want to make this layout horizontally scrollable.for this i have put my layout in a scroll view.but still it s not scrolling...given below is my code
<LinearLayout android:id="#+id/scoreballparent_layout"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:orientation="horizontal"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_above="#+id/score_layout">
<ScrollView android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:id="#+id/scrollView1"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
>
<LinearLayout android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:id="#+id/scoreball_layout"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:isScrollContainer="true"
android:scrollbars="horizontal">
</LinearLayout>
</ScrollView>
</LinearLayout>

Use HorizontalScrollView instead
Also your layout will become scrollabe after its contect can't fit layout area.

Simply use this in xml
android:fadeScrollbars="true" may be it works for you

Using scrollview on tabactivities with table layout

Im developing an android-app which is basicly three tabs each tab with its own activity class. Here is the main.xml:
<TabHost xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:id="#android:id/tabhost"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent">
<LinearLayout
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:padding="0dp">
<TabWidget
android:id="#android:id/tabs"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content">
</TabWidget>
<FrameLayout
android:id="#android:id/tabcontent"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:padding="0dp">
<include layout="#layout/sorted_teams" />
<include layout="#layout/unsorted_teams" />
<include layout="#layout/about" />
</FrameLayout>
</LinearLayout>
</TabHost>
I have three includes each with its own activity class and layout xml file. What I want is a scroll on the content of each tab. How would you go about this? I tried enclosing the entire content of the layout files for the different tabs with a scrollview. I use tablelayout for the content of every tab. I tried eclosing the entire content with a scrollview but it wont show up. How would you recommend using scrollview if I want the content scrollable for each tab?

Use a ScrollView as the enclosing parent of TableLayout in each layout file of each of your tab activities.
Make sure your scroll-view definition is similar to
<ScrollView
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_width="fill_parent">

Thank you for the quick answer! The solution you posted was my solution too but I had missed one detail that seemed to screw everyting up.
I tried again with enclosing everyting with a scrollview in each layout but I had fill_parent on layout_height, changing it to wrap_content seemed to fix everything, problem solved!
I dont know why we set it to fill_parent, I think it was because some issue with the background color.