Question

I’m trying to get my head around Android layout in the context of a ListView and it seems pretty primitive (though it’s entirely possible that I’m Doing It Wrong™), if I wanted to render something simple in a list view consisting of a Name and a Count, something like this:

I’d use this kind of XAML in WP8 / WPF / Silverlight:

<Grid>
    <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
        <ColumnDefinition Height="*" />
        <ColumnDefinition Height="Auto" />
    </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>

    <TextBlock Grid.Column="0" x:Name="Thing" />
    <TextBlock Grid.Column="1" x:Name="Count" />
</Grid>

However, that doesn’t seem to be possible with Android Layout – I tried using RelativeLayout but it seems as if either one or the other would always be full size and the other would get eaten.

Answer 1

Do you want something like this?

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

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
        android:layout_centerVertical="true"
        android:text="Thing" />

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
        android:layout_centerVertical="true"
        android:text="Count" />

</RelativeLayout>

Or you could use a LinearLayout and set weights:

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

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="0dp"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_weight="4"
        android:text="Thing" />

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="0dp"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_weight="1"
        android:text="Count" />

</LinearLayout>

Or you could use a GridView, there is a great example on developer.android.com.