Question

I have a widget layout xml which sets the src to the delivered android widget 4×1 frame image.Here is the widget layout code.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> 
<AbsoluteLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"  
 android:id="@+id/tuwidget" android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
 android:layout_height="fill_parent">
<ImageView android:id="@+id/tuwidget_img_btn" 
 android:src="@drawable/widgetinitial" 
 android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
 android:layout_height="wrap_content" /> 
</AbsoluteLayout>

@drawable/widgetinitial holds the widgetinitial.png image example 4×1 at developer.android.com (AppWidget design guidelines).(4x1_Widget_Frame_Portrait.psd) What I am trying to do is display an image inside the delivered frame instead what happens is the frame image goes away and only the image I am trying to display shows up. How can I display the image inside the bounding box or the background?
Any help is much appreciated.

Another question – I think I saw in a couple of forums AbsoluteLayout is a deprecated feature for Android 2.1 and above. Is that correct? and does using AbsoluteLayout throws any force close or other exceptions?

Answer 1

AbsoluteLayout is deprecated. It doesn’t throw any exceptions, but its generally a bad idea to use it because it is really hard to design a layout that will work on all screen sizes. There is generally a better way to do it using a different layout.

In your case, I don’t follow exactly, but it sounds like you want to layer two widgets on top of each other? An image with a frame? To do so, I’d use a FrameLayout. This is designed for having multiple layers of images.

Common layout objects is also a good guide to the basic layout types.