Question

I designed a layout using what I believe are the best practices, dp, fill_parent, wrap_parent, etc. It looks right in the graphical editor when set to 3.7in WVGA (Nexus One) but if I select 7in WSVGA (Tablet), the scale is off. An element that filled half the screen on 3.7in, looks to only fill about 1/4th the screen on the 7in. Is the graphical editor not scaling or is something wrong with my layout?

Answer 1

Well this could be because of several things. When you use DP, the density of different screens change. Thus, you have several drawable folders. Read more about density pixels and other graphical things here: http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html/

Also the ratio of the devices is off, and fill_parent fills a view, while wrap_content just uses the minimum width and height needed for a component. So, it can’t be related to that, since your using 1/2 or 1/4 of the screen. So, the scale is not off. Look below for some dp info straight from the website above:

xlarge screens are at least 960dp x 720dp
large screens are at least 640dp x 480dp
normal screens are at least 470dp x 320dp
small screens are at least 426dp x 320dp