android - layout looks messed up in some devices

Question

I'm having a very weird problem with a layout. It looks as designed in eclipse XML editor and in my Samsung galaxy but it's messed up in my old phone xperia x10 mini. I can only assume that this would occur in other devices too.

If someone could help fix this I would be grateful.

Here are the two screenshots and the XML code.

how it looks in eclipse layout editor and in my Samsung galaxy S4 mini

how it looks in Sony xperia x10 mini

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:gravity="center"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" > 

    <FrameLayout
        android:layout_marginTop="7dp"
        android:layout_gravity="center" 
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content">

        <View  android:layout_marginTop="19dp"  android:layout_marginLeft="19dp"  android:layout_height="249dp" android:layout_width="2dp"    android:background="#B2CFEF"/>
        <View  android:layout_marginTop="19dp"  android:layout_marginLeft="189dp" android:layout_height="249dp" android:layout_width="2dp"    android:background="#B2CFEF"/>
        <View  android:layout_marginTop="18dp"  android:layout_marginLeft="20dp"  android:layout_height="2dp"   android:layout_width="170dp"  android:background="#B2CFEF"/>
        <View  android:layout_marginTop="267dp" android:layout_marginLeft="19dp"  android:layout_height="2dp"   android:layout_width="171dp"  android:background="#B2CFEF"/>

        <ImageView  style="@style/ta_img"  android:id="@+id/ta_lu"                                     android:layout_marginTop="52dp"   />
        <ImageView  style="@style/ta_img"  android:id="@+id/ta_lc"                                     android:layout_marginTop="124dp"  />
        <ImageView  style="@style/ta_img"  android:id="@+id/ta_ld"                                     android:layout_marginTop="197dp"  />

        <ImageView  style="@style/ta_img"  android:id="@+id/ta_ru"  android:layout_marginLeft="170dp"  android:layout_marginTop="52dp"   />
        <ImageView  style="@style/ta_img"  android:id="@+id/ta_rc"  android:layout_marginLeft="170dp"  android:layout_marginTop="124dp"  />
        <ImageView  style="@style/ta_img"  android:id="@+id/ta_rd"  android:layout_marginLeft="170dp"  android:layout_marginTop="197dp"  />

        <ImageView  style="@style/ta_img"  android:id="@+id/ta_tl"  android:layout_marginLeft="37dp"                                     />
        <ImageView  style="@style/ta_img"  android:id="@+id/ta_tc"  android:layout_marginLeft="84dp"                                     />
        <ImageView  style="@style/ta_img"  android:id="@+id/ta_tr"  android:layout_marginLeft="132dp"                                    /> 

        <ImageView  style="@style/ta_img"  android:id="@+id/ta_bl"  android:layout_marginLeft="37dp"   android:layout_marginTop="249dp"  />
        <ImageView  style="@style/ta_img"  android:id="@+id/ta_bc"  android:layout_marginLeft="84dp"   android:layout_marginTop="249dp"  />
        <ImageView  style="@style/ta_img"  android:id="@+id/ta_br"  android:layout_marginLeft="132dp"  android:layout_marginTop="249dp"  />

    </FrameLayout>

</LinearLayout>

and this is the style of the ImageViews

<style name="ta_img" > 
        <item name="android:layout_width">40dp</item>
        <item name="android:layout_height">40dp</item>
        <item name="android:clickable">true</item>
        <item name="android:src">@drawable/ta</item>    
</style>

Any ideas???

Undue

How do you want this view to scale? Should it always be roughly the same width/height as the device, or do you want it to stay the same physical size on every device. The reason I ask is that your current layout is not very dynamic and will probably end up looking strange on many devices. – Languor

idealy it would scale to the device size and look bigger in bigger devices. I know that the xml i posted doesn't scale but that's just the first step. – Undue

A couple of questions: 1) What Android version is the Xperia? API level? 2) What is the drawable @drawable/ta in the style. Is that something that you can share? The screen looks OK as-is on an emulator with a LDPI 240x320 px screen. – Monogenesis

@Undue https://mcmap.net/q/808960/-android-layout-looks-messed-up-in-some-devices this answer use a correct solution, with a modern layout. – Goncourt

Answer 1

A constraint layout can easily adjust to fit any screen, without any complex hierarchies, like this:

<android.support.constraint.ConstraintLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">

<View
    android:id="@+id/left_border"
    android:layout_width="2dp"
    android:layout_height="0dp"
    android:layout_margin="@dimen/border_margin"
    android:background="#B2CFEF"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent" />

<ImageView
    android:id="@+id/ta_lu"
    style="@style/ta_img"
    app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="@id/left_border"
    app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="@id/left_border"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toTopOf="@id/ta_lc" />

<ImageView
    android:id="@+id/ta_lc"
    app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="@id/left_border"
    app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="@id/left_border"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="@id/ta_lu"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toTopOf="@id/ta_ld"
    style="@style/ta_img" />

<ImageView
    android:id="@+id/ta_ld"
    app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="@id/left_border"
    app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="@id/left_border"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="@id/ta_lc"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
    style="@style/ta_img" />

<View
    android:id="@+id/right_border"
    android:layout_width="2dp"
    android:layout_height="0dp"
    android:layout_margin="@dimen/border_margin"
    android:background="#B2CFEF"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent" />

<ImageView
    android:id="@+id/ta_ru"
    style="@style/ta_img"
    app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="@id/right_border"
    app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="@id/right_border"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toTopOf="@id/ta_rc" />

<ImageView
    android:id="@+id/ta_rc"
    app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="@id/right_border"
    app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="@id/right_border"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="@id/ta_ru"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toTopOf="@id/ta_rd"
    style="@style/ta_img" />

<ImageView
    android:id="@+id/ta_rd"
    app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="@id/right_border"
    app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="@id/right_border"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="@id/ta_rc"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
    style="@style/ta_img" />

<View
    android:id="@+id/top_border"
    android:layout_width="0dp"
    android:layout_height="2dp"
    android:layout_margin="@dimen/border_margin"
    android:background="#B2CFEF"
    app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent" />

<ImageView
    android:id="@+id/ta_tl"
    style="@style/ta_img"
    app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="@id/ta_tc"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="@id/top_border"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="@id/top_border" />

<ImageView
    android:id="@+id/ta_tc"
    style="@style/ta_img"
    app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="@id/ta_tl"
    app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="@id/ta_tr"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="@id/top_border"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="@id/top_border" />

<ImageView
    android:id="@+id/ta_tr"
    style="@style/ta_img"
    app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="@id/ta_tc"
    app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="@id/top_border"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="@id/top_border" />

<View
    android:id="@+id/bottom_border"
    android:layout_width="0dp"
    android:layout_height="2dp"
    android:layout_margin="@dimen/border_margin"
    android:background="#B2CFEF"
    app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent" />

<ImageView
    android:id="@+id/ta_bl"
    style="@style/ta_img"
    app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="@id/ta_bc"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="@id/bottom_border"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="@id/bottom_border" />

<ImageView
    android:id="@+id/ta_bc"
    style="@style/ta_img"
    app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="@id/ta_bl"
    app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="@id/ta_br"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="@id/bottom_border"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="@id/bottom_border" />

<ImageView
    android:id="@+id/ta_br"
    style="@style/ta_img"
    app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="@id/ta_bc"
    app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="@id/bottom_border"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="@id/bottom_border" />

To adjust the margins, just change border_margin in dimens.xml. I used the following value in the screenshot below, which you can adjust at will:

    <dimen name="border_margin">40dp</dimen>

Here's a screenshot:

Mercado

Answer 2

From official guideline about Supporting Multiple Screens.

Android runs on a variety of devices that offer different screen sizes and densities. For applications, the Android system provides a consistent development environment across devices and handles most of the work to adjust each application's user interface to the screen on which it is displayed. At the same time, the system provides APIs that allow you to control your application's UI for specific screen sizes and densities, in order to optimize your UI design for different screen configurations.

For example, you might want a UI for tablets that's different from the UI for handsets.Although the system performs scaling and resizing to make your application work on different screens, you should make the effort to optimize your application for different screen sizes and densities. In doing so, you maximize the user experience for all devices and your users believe that your application was actually designed for their devices—rather than simply

stretched to fit the screen on their devices.

For supporting the different screen sizes you must have different size images which you will save in various folders .

Drawable Logic

sw720dp          10.1” tablet 1280x800 mdpi

sw600dp          7.0”  tablet 1024x600 mdpi

sw480dp          5.4”  480x854 mdpi 
sw480dp          5.1”  480x800 mdpi 

xxhdpi           5.5"  1080x1920 xxhdpi
xxhdpi           5.5"  1440x2560 xxhdpi

xhdpi            4.7”   1280x720 xhdpi 
xhdpi            4.65”  720x1280 xhdpi 

hdpi             4.0” 480x800 hdpi
hdpi             3.7” 480x854 hdpi

mdpi             3.2” 320x480 mdpi

ldpi             3.4” 240x432 ldpi
ldpi             3.3” 240x400 ldpi
ldpi             2.7” 240x320 ldpi

Read Responsive UI with ConstraintLayout

FYI

ConstraintLayout is responsible for managing the positioning and sizing behavior of the visual components (also referred to as widgets) it contains.

Imparisyllabic

Answer 3

Using high dp values mostly lead into distortion in small screens. If you intend to support these devices, there are two things you can do:

1. Create another layout for -small devices.
2. Change your layout to work with layout_weight or a RelativeLayout.

Doing them both will be the best practice, in my opinion, though the first is more important.

Monophthong

Answer 4

You can have a look at this library. This library will help you to scale your views according to different screen sizes.

EDIT: This is how the library works.

You can simply use @dimen/_sdp instead of the normal dp which you are using

For eg

 <View  android:layout_marginTop="@dimen/_15sdp"  android:layout_marginLeft="@dimen/_15sdp"  android:layout_height="@dimen/_200sdp" android:layout_width="@dimen/_2sdp"    android:background="#B2CFEF"/>

And also please note that the values which I have used above are only for reference. You will have to try and find out which value suits your need.

Helpful

Answer 5

I suspect the issue you see right now is due to the Xperia x10's relatively small screen (240x320px). When you try to set the layout_marginTop and layout_marginLeft to relatively high dp, that might actually exceed the width/height of the phone, resulting in the layout that you're seeing.

I recommend leveraging multiple LinearLayouts within a RelativeLayout to get a more scalable layout. You can have 4 LinearLayouts, each along one edge of the screen, and within those layouts you can place your ImageViews. By giving each ImageView the same layout_weight, they can be distributed evenly along the length of the LinearLayout.

Languor

That was first thought too so I made the same layout dividing all the dp values by two. still the same result...just smaller! I will post a picture with it – Undue