Question

I have this as part of my layout:

<LinearLayout 
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
    android:layout_height="0dip"
    android:orientation="horizontal"
    android:layout_weight="0.15">

        <TextView 
            android:id="@+id/question_text"
            android:layout_width="0dip"
            android:layout_height="fill_parent" />

        <TextView
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_gravity="right"
            android:text="@string/score_label" />

        <TextView
            android:id="@+id/score_text"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_gravity="right" />

</LinearLayout>

The first TextView is empty at the beginning of the application. Its content is changed dynamically. This makes it occupy zero space so that the second TextView is aligned to the left, even though its layout_gravity is set to right.

How can I make it occupy a fixed width, without taking the contents into account?
I thought about using layout_weight, but I know the recommendation is against using nested weights (the parent ViewGroup has a layout_weight attribute). Maybe I should use a RelativeLayout?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Answer 1

You have all of your TextViews width set to android:layout_width="wrap_content" which means that if there’s nothing in there it will have no width. You need to set that to either "match_parent" which will make it the same width as it’s parent container or set it to a fixed value, something like android:layout_width="100dp".