Question

In Android, I’m trying to accomplish this:

Basically, the ability to add the button side by side with an EditText, where they both take up 90% of the width of a top row. (I’m not concerned with having a logo like the twitter icon).

I’ve tried LinearLayout with layout_weight, but they didn’t appear properly at all:

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:weightSum = "1.0"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:background = "#faadadad" >

    <EditText
        android:layout_width="0dip"
        android:layout_height="0dip"
        android:layout_weight = "0.8"
        android:layout_marginLeft = "2dip"
        android:layout_marginTop = "1dip"
        android:layout_marginBottom = "1dip"        
        android:hint="Search Terms" />

    <Button android:text = "?" 
        android:layout_width = "0dip" 
        android:layout_height="2dip"  android:layout_weight = "0.2"/>

    </LinearLayout>    

and anything I tried in RelativeLayout just didn’t look right (I tried setting the margin between the 2 element to 0dips, no luck. Also I couldn’t get the 90% of the width requirement either.)

What am I doing wrong? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Try using following:

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:weightSum = "1.0"
    android:orientation="horizontal"
    android:background = "#faadadad" >
    <LinearLayout android:layout_width="0dp"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_weight="0.8">    
        <EditText
            android:layout_width="fill_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_marginLeft = "2dip"
            android:layout_marginTop = "1dip"
            android:layout_marginBottom = "1dip"        
            android:hint="Search Terms" />
    </LinearLayout>
    <Button android:text = "?" 
        android:layout_width = "0dip" 
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_weight = "0.2"/>
</LinearLayout>

So basically, when you using, horizontal LinearLayout, then layout_weight works horizontally i.e. width is divided according to layout_weight parameter (layout_width=”0dp”). If you are using vertical LinearLayout, then layout_weight works vertically i.e. height is divided vertically according to layout_weight parameter (layout_height=”0dp”).

Hope it will be helpful to you.