Question

i created a game and released it, but really only tested it on phones and the emulator. later on i downloaded it on a touchpad and it confined to a small box at the top. through some searching i found that adding this code to my manifest:

  android:resizeable="true"
  <supports-screens
    android:smallScreens="true"
    android:normalScreens="true"
    android:largeScreens="true"
    android:anyDensity="false" /> 

i got it to fill up the whole screen, but everything is now horrendously out of proportion. is there a better way of going about this? do i need a separate layout xml for phones and touchpads? do i need to rewrite my original xml from the ground up?

Answer 1

Read this article:

http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html

By following the practices described in this document, you can create
an application that displays properly and provides an optimized user
experience on all supported screen configurations, using a single .apk
file.
…
Your application achieves “density independence” when it preserves
the physical size (from the user’s point of view) of user interface
elements when displayed on screens with different densities.

Maintaining density independence is important because, without it, a
UI element (such as a button) appears physically larger on a low density
screen and smaller on a high density screen. Such density-related size
changes can cause problems in your application layout and usability.
…
The Android system helps your application achieve density independence
in two ways:

• The system scales dp units as appropriate for the current screen density

• The system scales drawable resources to the appropriate size, based on
  the current screen density, if necessary