Question

I’d like to have two adjacent views, a first that is a fixed size and a second that adjacent to the first that uses the remaining space.

I could easily do this with LinearLayout and weights, but I would like to avoid the “nested weights are bad for performance” problem.

Is there another layout type that can accomplish the equivalent? Please provide an example if so.

Answer 1

A RelativeLayout could do what you want, for example:

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" >

    <Button
        android:id="@+id/button1"
        android:layout_width="200dp"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
        android:text="Button"
        android:background="#99cc00" />

    <Button
        android:id="@+id/button2"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
        android:layout_toRightOf="@id/button1"
        android:text="Button" 
        android:background="#0077cc"/>

</RelativeLayout>

The first Button will be 200dp in width and the second will stretch to fill the rest of the parent’s remaining width.

You could also use a RelativeLayout to split two views in equal sizes to avoid having double weights on some layouts.