Android: Layout views of the same size evenly - android

I'm trying to layout a set of horizontal and vertical buttons. The problem is that if I indicate 'layout_weight' for buttons, their dimensions don't follow the 'layout_width' & 'layout_height' tags.
Here's what I'm trying to achieve
So, buttons must have identical height & width and distribute evenly horizontally and vertically.
Can anyone suggest a solution please?
Thanks
UPDATE: After a lot of investigation and trying out different solutions, I came to a conclusion that my only option is to create my own custom layout and place buttons correctly there.

That configuration (the L shape) might make this a tad trickier... since the corner button might size like it's horizontal counterparts or it's vertical counterparts, depending on which linear layout they are apart of. In any event, you should be using wrap_content for the height or width, and they should all have a weight of 1. It's my understanding that the wrap_content for the height or width is important for the Linear Layout to size them correctly. It might work with fill_parent when the weights are all 1, but if you use different weights on different Views with fill_parent, things won't appear as you expect.

If you can't make it work with linearlayout and weights (which you should be able to do), you could always try to do some manual workarounds using relativelayout.

Related

How to avoid screen with changing TextViews relayout?

I have a screen which basically consists of 2 parts
upper is a hierarchical structure of multiple LinearLayouts with regularly changing TextViews,
lower is a heavy for drawing custom view.
Currently the TextViews in the upper part have wrap_context set to their width, as a result every their change cause Android to relayout the whole page, including the hard for drawing custom view in the lower part.
My question - Is there another way to solve this problem except changing layout_width parameter for changing TextViews to constant value?
Create LinearLayout to be parent with vertical orienetation. Now create two children LinearLayout with vertical orienetation but with layout_height to 0dp for each and layout_weight to 1 for each respectively.

Android sudokod layout

I want to develop a simple sudoku app. For the layout, I need to have a 9x9 table/grid for the board, and 12 buttons under it and all this must fit in one screen,i had a couple of ideas but there is a problem in each of them
Using GridView and pass a 2d array to the adapter, BUT, the grid is scrollable and the player must see the whole board.
Using TableView, but its not clickable as the grid.
Create 81 button for the board in the xml or programmatically, I think it will be complex.
Is there are any other simpler or more efficient ideas! And if not , which one from the above is better.
There's an option for getting this done using weighted width and height. As far as I know this feature is only available in LinearLayouts.
The main idea I've just explained in this answer.
Please first off read the answer I linked to and then you could use the following approach to laying out your buttons.
Declare a main vertical LinearLayout and set its width and height to match_parent.
Add 9 horizontal LinearLayouts while their width is set to match_parent and their height set to 0dp with layout_weigth equal to 1.
Add 9 buttons (i.e. your cells) to each LinearLayout while their width is set to 0dp and layout_weight set to 1 and their height is set to match_parent.

How to keep android device's layout responsive

I am new to xml and android and I was designing a simple application that has 3 buttons in two rows. Now I can't get to a way to make the layout responsive (adjust according to the screen resolution) for every android device. I did a little search but couldn't find anything relative.
So my first question is can you create a UI with xml that works with all sizes of screen?
If yes then how to do it? Or at-least please point me in the right direction.
Thanks
As user Radhe has suggested, android:layout_weight used appropriately within a LinearLayout will easily scale the buttons. If you have the buttons lined up horizontally within a LinearLayout, set each button's height to whatever you'd like (I prefer match_parent) and set each button's width to 0px. For each button, you may set a layout_weight. The weight of each button represents the ratio of the width of each button to every other within that LinearLayout. So if you have 3 buttons, each with a width of 1, the will all be the same width. If one button has a width of 2 and the other two have a width of 1 each, the one with the width of 2 will be as wide as the other two combined. Just play around with it until you get what you like.

Aligning in a grid

I'm developing an android calendar app so I need to align the days in a grid-like style. I'm using the API Level 8 so I need to align them by margins. But when switching to Bigger screens the numbers get to the left of screen and do not cover the whole screen.(I know that is because I use dp as a unit for my margin-left). Is there something like CSS % (percent) in Android Layouts?
Try this
android:layout_weight="1"
on each element in that section. It should space evenly.
It's weight attribute for views inside LinearLayout. Here is a good explanation what it means. But you can use it only to set view sizes, not margins. However you can put your view into RelativeLayout, place this layouts to take all available screen width and set attribute centerInParent=true in your view.

What is the most flexible layout?

What is the best layout to use to support the app on different devices (Size of screen)?
EDIT
I am not just talking about resizing the layout, obviously the OS does that automatically. I am talking about repositioning the objects in my layout.
by repositioning I mean moving the objects according to the size of the screen. For instance i created my layout for a larger screen which looks great, but when i run the app on a smaller device (smaller screen) some of my User Interface elements were out of the bound of my screen.
There is no "best" layout. Almost all types of layouts will scale to different devices (Android is designed around this concept) other than AbsoluteLayout, which is deprecated anyway.
LinearLayout is best if you just have a row (horizontal or vertical) of content to insert. Using values such as dip values, fill_parent, or wrap_content will automatically adjust themselves to their content or screen size.
RelativeLayout, as Vladimir pointed out, is best for layouts where views are positioned relative to other objects within the layout. For instance, a TextView positioned beside a "Submit" button, is a common example.
FrameLayout is sort of a replacement for AbsoluteLayout; you can layer objects on top of each other, just specifying margin offsets from the sides of the frame.
TableLayout is, as it sounds, a layout for Table style design. You can have multiple rows and columns, and set certain columns to stretch to fit the size of the display, so that no matter the screen size, the layout fits as you designed.
EDIT: If you're having objects falling outside of the screen area, try wrapping your root layout in a <ScrollView>. This will allow the layout to be scrollable.
e.g.
<ScrollView
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
>
<RelativeLayout
..... //and so on
</RelativeLayout>
</ScrollView>
All Layouts are flexible in terms of size... the rule is: don't use AbsoluteLayout. That's all.
And with regards to the repositioning concerns... well, use always dips instead of pixels and you are good to go. Again, don't use AbsoluteLayout, the rest of the layouts should work fine on every screen size. Sometimes you can anticipate those "disappearing acts" by wrapping your layout in a ScrollView.
RelativeLayout is what you should be looking at. It easily resizes the elements relative to their neighbors. Just make sure to include drawables for all resolutions and densities
LinearLayout,RelativeLayout,FrameLayout are import Layouts....

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