Question

I have <.ImageView>enter code heres(icons) in my android layout xml file, which are encompassed by a <ScrollView>.

Eg.

<.ScrollView><br>
<.LinearLayout><br>
<.ImageView> ...<./ImageView><br>
<./LinearLayout><br>
<./ScrollView>

To this layout, i want to attach a fixed footer. Basically a small tab present on the bottom on the screen which stays even when I scroll to the all the way down or all the way to the top.

Answer 1

I tend to write up layouts like this with a LinearLayout as root element and weights on the children to dynamically allocate screen estate. It keeps the layout definition compact and doesn’t require defining extra ids.

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent" 
    android:orientation="vertical" >

    <ScrollView
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="0dp" 
        android:layout_weight="1" >

        <LinearLayout
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:orientation="vertical" >

            <ImageView ... />
            <ImageView ... />
            ...
            <ImageView ... />

        </LinearLayout>
    </ScrollView>

    <!-- footer here -->
    <LinearLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" >
        ...
    </LinearLayout>
</LinearLayout>

Using a RelativeLayout as root element, with the ScrollView positioned ‘above’ the bottom-aligned footer, however, is probably slightly better in terms of performance, although I doubt it’ll make a noticable different in the case of a simple view hierarchy like this. The RelativeLayout approach does require assigning some ids (to at least the footer, I’d say).