Question

i need to create around 26 buttons for simple task like display alphabets. i can do this by using layout design.

if i create this button at run time will it give more performance(Considering memory, speed,apk size!)?

Important Requirements:

• this layout will be used by 4 different activities.
• I need to display 26 buttons at a time to user.
• These button may contain background
  image.

edit: This layout is like pop up window for other four activities. user can press any alphabets in this layout. As soon as alphabets get selected layout will be closed

Answer 1

Yikes. While XML is the best practice answer, 26 of anything screams for some dynamic run-time creation, or at least a combination of the two. You’re not going to see much difference in processing time or apk size either way – it will come down to code maintenance down the line.

For instance, consider what will happen when you want to change or add a new attribute, say padding, for each of your letter buttons. Do you want to have to manually go change all those XML elements, or think about a clever regex to properly find/replace?

I’d go with a combination of styles, <include> statement, and run time modification for a comprehensive, maintainable solution. First create a single button styled how you think you want all your buttons to look. Extract your “LetterButton” style out to style.xml and use the android:style="@style/LetterButton" attribute on your button instead. This will allow you to change your style in a single file and have it affect all your letter buttons.

Next, extract the button itself into an <include> file. You can do this by right clicking on the GUI version of the button and choosing “Extract include…”. Then arrange your <include>-buttons however you need to, perhaps in a <TableLayout>. Make sure you give each one a unique id, like @+id/letter_button_0 up through _25. The text attribute for all these buttons can be anything, you’ll set those dynamically later.

Finally, in your onCreate, define an array of ints of the form {R.id.letter_button_0, …}, and an array of Strings of the form {“A”, …}, and iterate over those, doing a button = findbyId(int), button.setText(String) to put a letter on each of your buttons.

It may seem like more work this way, but you’re doing all the heavy lifting creating a smart UI, so that down the line you can change code in a single place (style or include) and all your buttons will be updated.