Question

Desired layout is a header, with two frames below (to contain fragments later) and buttons fixed at the bottom of the screen:

     Header Text     
----------------------
frame 1   |  frame 2
----------------------
btn 1   btn 2   btn 3

I pretty much have this sorted (xml at end), with one problem… the two frames are overlapping the buttons.

I’ve done some searching on the issue and found this, but all that does is change my problem from the frames overflowing the buttons to the frames overflowing the header.

I also tried setting the buttons to appear below the frames instead of aligned to the bottom of the parent, but that just pushed them off the screen.

current layout xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical" >
    <TextView
            android:id="@+id/fdname"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
            android:clickable="true"
            android:gravity="center"
            android:text="No department info has been entered yet"
            android:textSize="25dp" />
    <TextView
            android:id="@+id/fdaddress"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_below="@id/fdname"
            android:gravity="center"
            android:text="address"
            android:textSize="15dp" />
    <TextView
            android:id="@+id/horizontalline"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="2dip"
            android:layout_below="@id/fdaddress"
            android:background="#ff23cf"
            android:gravity="center_vertical"
            android:paddingBottom="2dip"
            android:paddingTop="2dip" />
    <LinearLayout
            android:id="@+id/frames"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="match_parent"
            android:layout_below="@id/horizontalline"
            android:orientation="horizontal" >
            <FrameLayout
                    android:id="@+id/leftpane"
                    android:layout_width="0px"
                    android:layout_height="match_parent"
                    android:layout_weight="1" />
            <TextView
                    android:id="@+id/verticalline"
                    android:layout_width="2dp"
                    android:layout_height="match_parent"
                    android:background="#ff23cf"
                    android:gravity="center_horizontal"
                    android:paddingLeft="5dip"
                    android:paddingRight="5dip" />
            <FrameLayout
                    android:id="@+id/rightpane"
                    android:layout_width="0px"
                    android:layout_height="match_parent"
                    android:layout_weight="1" >
            </FrameLayout>
    </LinearLayout>
    <LinearLayout
            android:id="@+id/buttons"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
            android:gravity="center"
            android:orientation="horizontal" >
            <Button
                    android:id="@+id/EventViewButton"
                    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                    android:gravity="center"
                    android:minHeight="25dp"
                    android:text="@string/menu_event_view"
                    android:textSize="15dp" 
                    android:layout_weight="1">
            </Button>
            <Button
                    android:id="@+id/MemberViewButton"
                    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                    android:gravity="center"
                    android:minHeight="25dp"
                    android:text="@string/menu_member_view"
                    android:textSize="15dp" 
                    android:layout_weight="1">
            </Button>
            <Button
                    android:id="@+id/AttendanceViewButton"
                    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                    android:gravity="center"
                    android:minHeight="25dp"
                    android:text="@string/menu_atnd_view"
                    android:textSize="15dp" 
                    android:layout_weight="1">
            </Button>
    </LinearLayout>
</RelativeLayout>

Answer 1

Try to declare the LinearLayout containing your buttons before the LinearLayout containing your frames, preserving the android:layout_alignParentBottom="true" attribute.

Then, to your frames container, add an above constraint:

android:layout_below="@id/horizontalline"
android:layout_above="@id/buttons"

This way should force your frames to be last thing to be drawn on the screen, thus filling the remaining space.

Hope it works!