This is not the most performant solution, but as somebody suggested instead of background you can create FrameLayout or RelativeLayout and use ImageView as pseudo background - other elements will be position simply above it:
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_width="match_parent">
<ImageView
android:id="@+id/ivBackground"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:scaleType="fitStart"
android:src="@drawable/menu_icon_exit" />
<Button
android:id="@+id/bSomeButton"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:layout_marginLeft="61dp"
android:layout_marginTop="122dp"
android:text="Button" />
</RelativeLayout>
The problem with ImageView is that only scaleTypes available are:
CENTER, CENTER_CROP, CENTER_INSIDE, FIT_CENTER,FIT_END, FIT_START, FIT_XY, MATRIX
(http://etcodehome.blogspot.de/2011/05/android-imageview-scaletype-samples.html)
and to "scale the background image (keeping its aspect ratio)" in some cases, when you want an image to fill the whole screen (for example background image) and aspect ratio of the screen is different than image's, the necessary scaleType is kind of TOP_CROP, because:
CENTER_CROP centers the scaled image instead of aligning the top edge to the top edge of the image view and FIT_START fits the screen height and not fill the width. And as user Anke noticed FIT_XY doesn't keep aspect ratio.
Gladly somebody has extended ImageView to support TOP_CROP
public class ImageViewScaleTypeTopCrop extends ImageView {
public ImageViewScaleTypeTopCrop(Context context) {
super(context);
setup();
}
public ImageViewScaleTypeTopCrop(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
super(context, attrs);
setup();
}
public ImageViewScaleTypeTopCrop(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle) {
super(context, attrs, defStyle);
setup();
}
private void setup() {
setScaleType(ScaleType.MATRIX);
}
@Override
protected boolean setFrame(int frameLeft, int frameTop, int frameRight, int frameBottom) {
float frameWidth = frameRight - frameLeft;
float frameHeight = frameBottom - frameTop;
if (getDrawable() != null) {
Matrix matrix = getImageMatrix();
float scaleFactor, scaleFactorWidth, scaleFactorHeight;
scaleFactorWidth = (float) frameWidth / (float) getDrawable().getIntrinsicWidth();
scaleFactorHeight = (float) frameHeight / (float) getDrawable().getIntrinsicHeight();
if (scaleFactorHeight > scaleFactorWidth) {
scaleFactor = scaleFactorHeight;
} else {
scaleFactor = scaleFactorWidth;
}
matrix.setScale(scaleFactor, scaleFactor, 0, 0);
setImageMatrix(matrix);
}
return super.setFrame(frameLeft, frameTop, frameRight, frameBottom);
}
}
https://mcmap.net/q/161220/-imageview-scaling-top_crop
Now IMHO would be perfect if somebody wrote custom Drawable which scales image like that. Then it could be used as background parameter.
Reflog suggests to prescale drawable before using it. Here is instruction how to do it:
Java (Android): How to scale a drawable without Bitmap?
Although it has disadvantage, that upscaled drawable/bitmap will use more RAM, while scaling on the fly used by ImageView doesn't require more memory. Advantage could be less processor load.