Question

I have a class called Game that extends View. I have an xml called game.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/game_layout"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent">
</LinearLayout>

As you can see all it is is a LinearLayout. Now what i want to do is make my game view show up in the LinearLayout. Heres the relevent code in Game:

public Game(Activity activ)
{
    activ.setContentView(R.layout.game);

    ...

    layout = (LinearLayout)activ.findViewById(R.id.game_layout);
    layout.addView(this);

    ...
}

public void onDraw(Canvas canvas)
{
    board.draw(canvas);
}

now when i run this it is just a blank screen. What am i doing wrong? The onDraw method is fine because when i did this it worked fine:

public Game(Activity activ)
{
    activ.setContentView(this);
}

public void onDraw(Canvas canvas)
{
    board.draw(canvas);
}

but the reason why i cant do it like that anymore is because on tablets there is a bar at the bottom where the back button and the show keyboard buttons are. When i do it like this it draws under that bar and it cuts off images. If i do it like this then Android sets the bounds of the layout so that it isnt under that bar. I would prefer to do it with the xml layout anyway because I think Android works better when you use the xml layouts instead of setting your custom view to the content view. All relevent answers are appriciated!

Answer 1

I think you are not able to see your view because you havent sepecified any layout params.
Try this before you call addView method.

ViewGroup.LayoutParams lp = new ViewGroup.LayoutParams(LayoutParams.FILL_PARENT,
        LayoutParams.FILL_PARENT);
layout.addView(this);

The xml way of doing this would be.
Inside you xml file you can include your custom view like

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> 
<LinearLayout 
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" 
    android:id="@+id/game_layout" 
    android:orientation="vertical" 
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
    android:layout_height="fill_parent">
    <com.yourpackage.Game android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="fill_parent"/> 
</LinearLayout>