Android: How to size buttons? - android

I'm using several buttons in my app, but both layout_width/height "wrap_content" and "fill_parent" looks weird. The former being to small and the latter too large - both looks weird, and the former is not easy to hit with your finger.
How should I size buttons? Is it typical to define their sizes in dip? Or should I use "fill_parent" with a padding? Buttons looks weird in my app, not so in others.

That is difficult to answer in the abstract. Here are some techniques to consider:
Use android:padding="4dip" (or some other value) to make a wrap_content Button a bit bigger
Use android:textSize on the Button to make the content bigger (use some size in scaled pixels, or sp)
If you want the buttons to fill the space but divide it among themselves, use a LinearLayout, give each button a height (or width, depending if column or row) of 0px, then use android:layout_weight to allocate space between them on a percentage basis. Here is a sample project outlining this technique.

I think it is better to use fill_parent with a padding/margin instead an exact width value. So you are more flexible when the size of the parent view changes.

Related

android set button height [duplicate]

I'm using several buttons in my app, but both layout_width/height "wrap_content" and "fill_parent" looks weird. The former being to small and the latter too large - both looks weird, and the former is not easy to hit with your finger.
How should I size buttons? Is it typical to define their sizes in dip? Or should I use "fill_parent" with a padding? Buttons looks weird in my app, not so in others.
That is difficult to answer in the abstract. Here are some techniques to consider:
Use android:padding="4dip" (or some other value) to make a wrap_content Button a bit bigger
Use android:textSize on the Button to make the content bigger (use some size in scaled pixels, or sp)
If you want the buttons to fill the space but divide it among themselves, use a LinearLayout, give each button a height (or width, depending if column or row) of 0px, then use android:layout_weight to allocate space between them on a percentage basis. Here is a sample project outlining this technique.
I think it is better to use fill_parent with a padding/margin instead an exact width value. So you are more flexible when the size of the parent view changes.

Question about DP in Android

Let's say I prefer using "dp" rather than "fill_parent" or "wrap_content", what would be the appropriate number to use in order to fill the screen with a picture?
This depends of the screen and of its density. Check this article to learn more about that.
(This may lead you to reconsider using fill_parent / wrap_content by the way).
Why would you "prefer" this? Precise dp values for layout_width/layout_height are one tool alongside match_parent and wrap_content and building a nice UI will usually involve all three. Which one is appropriate for each dimension of any given View is situational and match_parent's entire reason for existence is to match the size of a View's container, in your case the screen.
(* match_parent is the newer name for fill_parent.)

Android: custom views with proportional widths and same heights

I try to implement a good reusable color picker for my Sketcher application. Instructions and screenshots are here: http://bit.ly/sketcherapp
The problem is I'm stuck with a good "resizable" UI which enable me to support wide range of devices with different screen sizes.
The top two widgets should be the same height and have proportional widths: 80 to 20. Also it would be nice to specify paddings in XML.
Current implementation is not good. I hardcoded some values into code and also it looks bad on Xoom devices because of inaccurate layout measurements.
Is there any way to implement this behavior? Ideally, I need some way to do it like with HTML tables (pseudocode):
table.width=100%, td1.width=80%, td2.padding=5px, ...
or something like that.
Current implementation:
code:
https://github.com/wargoth/Sketcher/tree/master/src/org/sketcher/colorpicker
layout:
https://github.com/wargoth/Sketcher/blob/master/res/layout/color_picker.xml
Thank you.
The top two widgets should be the same height and have proportional widths: 80 to 20.
Use a horizontal LinearLayout, android:layout_width="0dip" for both widgets, and android:layout_weight="80" and android:layout_weight="20", respectively.
Also it would be nice to specify paddings in XML.
Use android:paddingLeft and kin.
OK. I stopped boring with it and created dedicated layouts for each screen size.

Android: Layout views of the same size evenly

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.

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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