Question

I have a view with articles. It uses “include”, and I’m trying to make a little margin between them. However, “android:layout_marginTop” does not seem to have any impact on the layout.

What am I doing wrong?

<LinearLayout 
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:orientation="vertical" >    
    <include android:id="@+id/article1" layout="@layout/mainarticle" />
    <include android:id="@+id/article2" android:layout_marginTop="10dip" layout="@layout/article" />
    <include android:id="@+id/article3" android:layout_marginTop="10dip" layout="@layout/article" />
    <include android:id="@+id/article4" android:layout_marginTop="10dip" layout="@layout/article" />
    <include android:id="@+id/article5" android:layout_marginTop="10dip" layout="@layout/article" />    
</LinearLayout>

Answer 1

You should add the android:layout_width and android:layout_height attributes in the include tag. Otherwise, the margins are not taken into consideration.

However, if you want to override layout attributes using the <include> tag, you must override both android:layout_height and android:layout_width in order for other layout attributes to take effect.

https://developer.android.com/training/improving-layouts/reusing-layouts.html#Include