Develop Reference

why the design of user interface change in different emulator in android studio?

I'm begin to learning android programming and I did not know much about this language
I write a program. I do not know why when I see my user interface it is good but when I run it with different emulators , each emulator show it in different way
enter code here : <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent" android:paddingLeft="#dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
android:paddingRight="#dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
android:paddingTop="#dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
android:paddingBottom="#dimen/activity_vertical_margin" tools:context="com.example.faezeh.homework2.MainActivity"
android:orientation="vertical"
>
<TextView android:text="تمرین دوم"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
android:textSize="50sp"
android:textColor="#ff4400"
android:paddingTop="30dp"
/>
<TextView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="مدیریت یادداشت"
android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
android:textSize="40sp"
android:textColor="#000000"
android:paddingTop="30dp"
/>
<TextView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="تاریخ : 1393/12/26"
android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
android:textSize="40sp"
android:textColor="#000000"
android:paddingTop="30dp"
/>
<Button
android:id="#+id/theList"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="فهرست یادداشت ها"
android:textSize="30sp"
android:textColor="#000000"
android:background="#00ffff"
android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
android:layout_marginTop="30dp"
/>
<Button
android:id="#+id/search"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="جستجوی یادداشت "
android:textSize="30sp"
android:textColor="#000000"
android:background="#00ffff"
android:layout_marginTop="10dp"
android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
/>
<LinearLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:orientation="horizontal"
android:gravity="bottom"
>
<Button
android:id="#+id/aboutUs"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="درباره ما"
android:textSize="35sp"
android:textColor="#000000"
android:background="#00ffff"
android:layout_gravity="left|bottom"
/>
<Button
android:id="#+id/setting"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="تنظیمات"
android:textSize="35sp"
android:textColor="#000000"
android:background="#00ffff"
android:layout_gravity="right|bottom"
/>
</LinearLayout>

try to see this thing in your eclipse then your user interface will never change.
you can convert Activity check at here is schreen size 15 schreen sizes are given here to check all android device follow these size once

Since android is available for various types of devices, here I am saying the screen size of the device. So every device comes under certain category with their corresponding screen size, these category are probably LDPI, MDPI, HDPI, XHDPI and XXHDPI. So the design we do usually varies among different screen size.
For detail information regarding the multiple screen size in android and how to handle it, do visit:
http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html
what i have to do to fix this? for example nexus one and nexus 5 show
my program in different way . what i have to do to both of them show
it in right way? – faezeh 1 hour ago
Well for this case you have to particularly design your screens in such a way that it optimize all the screen size. For this here are some key design parameters you should look on:
use textAppearnce instead of textSize property like :
android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge"
Try to hard code your controls specially buttons, as dp automatically resize according to the screen size of device.
Try to use layout_weight property in your design.
If you follow this basic guideline, then there will be no problem.
Cheers

How to achieve this kind of layout in Android

I'm new to Android development and I'm trying to achieve a layout for my app that is capable of handling different screen resolutions/ratios.
I've been reading a lot of the documentation and questions on this site to try to understand the basics and concepts.
First I went through:
developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html
And questions like:
stackoverflow.com/questions/6403619/how-to-support-all-the-different-resolutions-of-android-products
I've got a pretty basic idea on how to handle things out. But still, its pretty difficult for a starter to get going, and I found myself stucked trying to achieve the solution I came up with.
I designed my app to a target resolution of 480x800, and set it up to always show in portrait mode.
This is how it looks like and how I understand it should work (I used Waldo for the sake of example haha):
(sorry for the link, I need 10 rep to post images)
http://i.imgur.com/KXTAXir.jpg
My root Layout is a LinearLayout, wich contains 3 other Layouts being A and C set up to a weight of 0.8 while B is at 8.4. This is all fine, but the contents of B are set up to DP units at the moment just to be able to test.
B consists of a frame Layout who has 3 other Layouts inside, where 2 of them are working fine, and shown only when needed. The problem is that I need B to be able to adapt based on the contents of it first child: a LinearLayout wich contains 2 ImageView and 1 ProgressBar. I need that those ImageView always keep their ratio.
Here is an example of how it should work:
http://i.imgur.com/cH7fUze.jpg
Imagine those 4 are real screens, wich vary in ratio and size. So my app should only adapt B (from my first image) to keep the images original ratio.
Here is the layout code:
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:background="#color/darkgray"
android:orientation="vertical" >
<RelativeLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="0dp"
android:layout_weight="0.8"
android:background="#666666" >
<TextView
android:id="#+id/level_text_name"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:text="LEVEL"
android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceSmall" />
<TextView
android:id="#+id/level_text_score"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:text="SCORE"
android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceMedium" />
<TextView
android:id="#+id/level_text_clock"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:text="01:59"
android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceSmall" />
</RelativeLayout>
<FrameLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="0dp"
android:layout_weight="8.4" >
<LinearLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:orientation="vertical" >
<ImageView
android:id="#+id/imageView1"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="200dp"
android:adjustViewBounds="true" />
<ProgressBar
android:id="#+id/progressBar1"
style="?android:attr/progressBarStyleHorizontal"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:max="1000"
android:progress="0" />
<ImageView
android:id="#+id/imageView2"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="200dp"
android:adjustViewBounds="true" />
</LinearLayout>
<RelativeLayout
android:id="#+id/pauseMask"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:background="#000000"
android:visibility="gone" >
</RelativeLayout>
<RelativeLayout
android:id="#+id/gameoverMask"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:background="#FFFFFF"
android:visibility="gone" >
</RelativeLayout>
</FrameLayout>
<RelativeLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="0dp"
android:layout_weight="0.8"
android:background="#666666" >
<TextView
android:id="#+id/level_text_status"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:text="0/0"
android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceMedium" />
<Button
android:id="#+id/button1"
style="?android:attr/buttonStyleSmall"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:text="Button"
android:onClick="useHint" />
<Button
android:id="#+id/button2"
style="?android:attr/buttonStyleSmall"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_toLeftOf="#+id/button1"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:text="Button"
android:onClick="toggleSound" />
<Button
android:id="#+id/button3"
style="?android:attr/buttonStyleSmall"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_toLeftOf="#+id/button2"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:text="Button"
android:onClick="togglePause" />
</RelativeLayout>
The last thing that stays unclear to me is how to handle the text and button sizes. Should I set them in DPs? How do I get them to scale accordingly like it can be seen on the bottom of my second picture.
Thank you for your help, I also want this to serve as an example to others that are having trouble to understand how to handle this kind of scenarios.

I'm not sure, if I got your question right.
However, you can specify different layouts for different screen sizes and orientations, as described here: http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html
Just give the respective suffix in the name of your layout XML file.

I ended up creating a custom View for my images. The view calculates the space thats left on its parent, scales the images manually and then resizes itself to the same size of the resulting image.
To resize the progress bar to have the same width as the images, I used a custom listener that gets triggered when my custom views get resized. Then I resize the progressbar to match their width.
With this I achieved what I wanted, a layout that will work perfectly in all screen sizes.

How to make layouts grow and shrink?

I'm playing around with making a random recipe collection app.
Now I came across a problem: at the moment I have designed it with my mobile's resolution in mind. But what if the app is used on a device with larger resolution eg. a tablet.
What I want to achieve is that I want the buttons to grow shrink depending on the resolution. For example: when holding my phone vertically, there are 2 columns of buttons. When holding it horizontally, there still are 2 columns, but the view gets wider. Then there should be 4 columns to fill as much of the white space as possible.
Two pictures to illustrate my thoughts:
vertical
horizontal with 2 more columns
My code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:background="#ffcc33"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:paddingTop="10dp"
android:paddingLeft="10dp"
android:paddingRight="10dp" >
<LinearLayout android:orientation="horizontal"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:weightSum="1000" >
<EditText
android:id="#+id/search_box"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_gravity="left"
android:layout_weight="1000"
android:ems="5"
android:hint="#string/search_hint" />
<Button
android:id="#+id/search_button"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_gravity="right"
android:text="#string/search_button" />
</LinearLayout>
<ScrollView android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" >
<LinearLayout
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:gravity="center" >
<RelativeLayout
android:layout_width="225dp"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_below="#+id/search_box"
android:layout_gravity="center"
android:layout_marginTop="15dp" >
<Button
android:id="#+id/btn_lihatoidud"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background="#android:color/transparent"
android:drawableTop="#drawable/lihatoidud"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:text="Lihatoidud"
android:textSize="18sp" />
<Button
android:id="#+id/btn_kypsetised"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_below="#+id/btn_lihatoidud"
android:layout_marginTop="15dp"
android:background="#android:color/transparent"
android:drawableTop="#drawable/kypsetised"
android:text="Küpsetised"
android:textSize="18sp" />
<Button
android:id="#+id/btn_seenetoidud"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_below="#+id/btn_kypsetised"
android:layout_marginTop="15dp"
android:background="#android:color/transparent"
android:drawableTop="#drawable/seenetoidud"
android:text="Seenetoidud"
android:textSize="18sp" />
<Button
android:id="#+id/btn_juustutoidud"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_below="#+id/btn_seenetoidud"
android:layout_marginTop="15dp"
android:background="#android:color/transparent"
android:drawableTop="#drawable/juustutoidud"
android:text="Juustutoidud"
android:textSize="18sp" />
<Button
android:id="#+id/btn_lisandid"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_below="#+id/btn_juustutoidud"
android:layout_marginTop="15dp"
android:background="#android:color/transparent"
android:drawableTop="#drawable/lisandid"
android:text="Lisandid"
android:textSize="18sp" />
<Button
android:id="#+id/btn_supid"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:background="#android:color/transparent"
android:drawableTop="#drawable/supid"
android:text="Supid"
android:textSize="18sp" />
<Button
android:id="#+id/btn_voileivad"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:layout_below="#+id/btn_supid"
android:layout_marginTop="15dp"
android:background="#android:color/transparent"
android:drawableTop="#drawable/voileivad"
android:text="Võileivad"
android:textSize="18sp" />
<Button
android:id="#+id/btn_pudrud"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:layout_below="#+id/btn_voileivad"
android:layout_marginTop="15dp"
android:background="#android:color/transparent"
android:drawableTop="#drawable/pudrud"
android:text="Pudrud"
android:textSize="18sp" />
<Button
android:id="#+id/btn_joogid"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:layout_below="#+id/btn_pudrud"
android:layout_marginTop="15dp"
android:background="#android:color/transparent"
android:drawableTop="#drawable/joogid"
android:text="Joogid"
android:textSize="18sp" />
</RelativeLayout>
</LinearLayout>
</ScrollView>
</LinearLayout>

Android has a few mechanisms for dealing with this kind of thing. For most people simply having a different layout for different classes of device will be sufficient. i.e:
res/
layout/
my_layout.xml
layout-land/ # landscape
my_layout.xml
layout-sw600dp # bigger devices
my_layout.xml
layout-sw600dp-land # Big and landscape
Android will automatically pick the right layout on the device your app gets loaded on. See the Developer Guide for details there. Alternatively, you might need to define your own custom view that resizes your grid based on the available size. An example of this is a CellLayout, a class written for the grid of apps in Launcher

I would actually reccomend you use the GridView pattern.
https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/layout/gridview.html
Benfits include
Easily customize able if you need multiple rows/columns
Faster performance because you re-use a lot the same views. Scales much better than scrollview approach
Here example with two column for Phones
Here example with four column for tablets
All changing only the number of columns the grid should show. The best way to do this by what "JRaymond" recommended, by having multiple values resposnes depending on if its a tablet/phone. Example
->values ->attrs_arin_view.xml
->values-land->attrs_arin_view.xml
->values-sw600dp -> attrs_arin_view.xml
inside values ->attrs_arin_view.xml
<resources>
<integer name="number_of_column">2</integer>
</resources>
and then change in the values-land to have number_of_column to 4.
Then in your in your xml you mention the integer once
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:orientation="vertical"
>
<GridView
android:id="#+id/gridView1"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:horizontalSpacing="8dp"
android:numColumns="#integer/number_of_column"
android:padding="8dp"
tools:listitem="#layout/grid_cell_note"
>
</GridView>
</LinearLayout>

You need to create xml files for different screen sizes
http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html
design your XML files to use references instead of hardcoded strings. You can then assign a reference to layouts, buttons and so on which has a different value depending on screen sizes.
(use android:padding="#dimen/pagepadding" instead of android:padding="16dp" and define the dp in values/dimens.xml like this: <dimen name="pagepadding">16dp</dimen>)
To do that you have to create new folders in your Project like values-sw600dp for devices with 600dp smallest width (like Nexus 7 I believe) or values-sw720dp-land for devices with the smallest width of 720dp (10 inch tablets I believe) in landscape.
Do some reading on the developer page and on the internet for that. It's not too difficult

Scaleable size of application with non 9-patch buttons

I'm currently learning android development, and before I get too stuck in to a large project, I decided I would need to learn about making an application accessible from as many devices as possible.
So I have a test application using RelativeLayout. The top-level activity has 6 large menu buttons on it. These buttons are square graphical images (not 9-patch buttons as they are - to my knowledge - too graphically primitive). On the device I'm using for testing, these buttons appear in a perfect 2x3 arrangement like such:
However, when I try and run this application on a larger device, the buttons will appear like so:
Is there a way to scale non-9-patch buttons based on the size of the screen, so that they will always appear like the first image? Is this recommended? If not, is there an alternative way of doing such a layout for different screen sizes?
My ideal layout would be scalable across different devices, like so:

I am using similar menu. And here is first row of it. The buttons in this menu has labels too.
<LinearLayout
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_marginLeft="20dip"
android:layout_marginRight="20dip"
android:gravity="center" >
<RelativeLayout
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_margin="5dip" >
<Button
android:id="#+id/screen_home_btn_profile"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background="#drawable/selector_ic_my_profile" />
<LinearLayout
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:paddingBottom="5dip" >
<TextView
style="#style/label_text_style_home_screen"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="#string/screen_home_label_my" />
<TextView
style="#style/label_text_style_home_screen"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="#string/screen_home_label_profile"
android:textStyle="bold" />
</LinearLayout>
</RelativeLayout>
<RelativeLayout
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_margin="5dip" >
<Button
android:id="#+id/screen_home_btn_application"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background="#drawable/selector_ic_my_application" />
<LinearLayout
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:paddingBottom="5dip" >
<TextView
style="#style/label_text_style_home_screen"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="#string/screen_home_label_my" />
<TextView
style="#style/label_text_style_home_screen"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="#string/screen_home_label_application"
android:textStyle="bold" />
</LinearLayout>
</RelativeLayout>
</LinearLayout>
It seems you are giving outer margins to the buttons. Align them in center and give spaces between 2 buttons and not the screen border & buttons.

Android 4x2 widget

Looking at the Facebook widget I realized its a 4x2 cell and this isn't one of the standard sizes. I have tried to re-create a widget of this size (either as 320x200 or 294x146 px) however the widget doesn't look good on all devices. The widget layout is :
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!-- Portrait -->
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:id="#+id/widget"
android:background="#drawable/widget_bg"
>
<TextView android:id="#+id/widget_title"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="60dip"
android:layout_marginTop="1dip"
android:textSize="20.0sp"
android:maxLines="3"
android:textColor="#000"
android:textStyle="bold"
android:gravity="center"
android:layout_marginLeft="10dip"
android:layout_marginRight="10dip"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:ellipsize="end"
/>
<ImageView android:id="#+id/widget_thumb"
android:layout_width="304dip"
android:layout_height="90dip"
android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
android:layout_marginLeft="7dip"
android:src="#drawable/thumb_placeholder_large"
android:adjustViewBounds="true"
android:layout_below="#+id/widget_title"
android:background="#000"
/>
<!-- previous button -->
<Button
android:id="#+id/widget_previous"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
android:layout_marginLeft="5dp"
android:layout_marginBottom="35dp"
android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
android:background="#drawable/left_button"/>
<!-- Next Button -->
<Button
android:id="#+id/widget_next"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:layout_marginRight="5dp"
android:layout_marginBottom="35dp"
android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
android:background="#drawable/right_button" />
<!-- Indicator -->
<LinearLayout
android:id="#+id/widget_progressbar"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:layout_marginBottom="33dp"
android:layout_marginRight="50dp"
android:layout_alignParentBottom="true">
<!-- ProgressBar throws exception when it's set invisible from RemoteViews use a layout wrapper instead -->
<ProgressBar
android:layout_width="15dp"
android:layout_height="15dp">
</ProgressBar>
</LinearLayout>
</RelativeLayout>
On the Motorola Droid this layout fits properly, however on other devices the ImageView sits way below. Any help/suggestions are appreciated.
The drawable_bg.png is 294x146px.
Sandeep

The actual size of the widget depends on
the display resolution (pixels) of the device
the used home application (they have different notification bars and bottom bars)
the Android OS version (different versions also have different home apps)
So better make your layout "fill_parent" and your background image a "ninepatch" image.
Also use different background images for different display resolution (dpi) to make the background image look perfect.

i think you should consider creating more layouts for different screen sizes , and test them so you could make sure your widget looks good on all screen sizes .