Question

I understand the functionality of liner and relative layout.

But I am confused which one to pick for the activity since I can full fill my requirment with both of them.

As I am working on emulator , So I think I am missing something, Is there any guidance or litmus on when to use which layout ?

Answer 1

This is how I nest the various views. from this example you can see that I use the ScrollView at the lowest level so that the view can scroll easily.

I then use the linear layout ontop of the scrollview so that I can simply stack widgets on the screen row by row.

Finally, I use the RelativeLayout so that I can use the “layout_alignParentBottom” parameter and make the button show on the bottom of the view.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<!-- use ScrollView incase it doesn't fit on small display -->
<ScrollView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
          android:orientation="vertical"
          android:layout_width="fill_parent"
          android:layout_height="fill_parent"
          android:fillViewport="true"
          android:background="#fffcb95a">

    <LinearLayout android:orientation="vertical"
              android:layout_width="fill_parent"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent">

        <!-- Hello World -->
        <TextView android:text="Hello World" 
                  android:id="@+id/TextViewHeaderMessage1" 
                  android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
                  android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                  android:paddingTop="8dip"
                  android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge"
                  android:gravity="center_horizontal"
                  android:paddingBottom="30dip"
                  android:textColor="#6a7349" />



        <RelativeLayout android:orientation="horizontal"
                  android:layout_width="fill_parent"
                  android:layout_height="wrap_content">

            <!-- "OK" BUTTON -->
            <Button android:text="OK" 
                    android:id="@+id/ok_button" 
                    android:layout_width="150dip" 
                    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                    android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
                    android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" />

        </RelativeLayout>

    </LinearLayout>

</ScrollView>