Android Training--Supporting Different Screen Sizes

Use Size Qualifiers

There’s only so much mileage you can get from a flexible layout or relative layout like the one in the previous sections. While those layouts adapt to different screens by stretching the space within and around components, they may not provide the best user experience for each screen size. Therefore, your application should not only implement flexible layouts, but should also provide several alternative layouts to target different screen configurations. You do so by using configuration qualifiers, which allows the runtime to automatically select the appropriate resource based on the current device’s configuration (such as a different layout design for different screen sizes).

For example, many applications implement the “two pane” pattern for large screens (the app might show a list of items on one pane and the content on another pane). Tablets and TVs are large enough for both panes to fit simultaneously on screen, but phone screens have to show them separately. So, to implement these layouts, you could have the following files:

res/layout/main.xml, single-pane (default) layout:

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

    <fragment android:id="@+id/headlines"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent"
              android:name="com.example.android.newsreader.HeadlinesFragment"
              android:layout_width="match_parent" />
</LinearLayout>

res/layout-large/main.xml, two-pane layout:

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:orientation="horizontal">
    <fragment android:id="@+id/headlines"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent"
              android:name="com.example.android.newsreader.HeadlinesFragment"
              android:layout_width="400dp"
              android:layout_marginRight="10dp"/>
    <fragment android:id="@+id/article"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent"
              android:name="com.example.android.newsreader.ArticleFragment"
              android:layout_width="fill_parent" />
</LinearLayout>

使用最小宽度限定符

最小宽度限定符可让您通过指定某个最小宽度（以 dp 为单位）来定位屏幕。例如，标准 7 英寸平板电脑的最小宽度为 600 dp，因此如果您要在此类屏幕上的用户界面中使用双面板（但在较小的屏幕上只显示列表），您可以使用上文中所述的单面板和双面板这两种布局，但您应使用 sw600dp 指明双面板布局仅适用于最小宽度为 600 dp 的屏幕，而不是使用 large 尺寸限定符：
res/layout/main.xml，单面板（默认）布局：

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

    <fragment android:id="@+id/headlines"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent"
              android:name="com.example.android.newsreader.HeadlinesFragment"
              android:layout_width="match_parent" />
</LinearLayout>

res/layout-sw600dp/main.xml，双面板布局：

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:orientation="horizontal">
    <fragment android:id="@+id/headlines"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent"
              android:name="com.example.android.newsreader.HeadlinesFragment"
              android:layout_width="400dp"
              android:layout_marginRight="10dp"/>
    <fragment android:id="@+id/article"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent"
              android:name="com.example.android.newsreader.ArticleFragment"
              android:layout_width="fill_parent" />
</LinearLayout>

Use Orientation Qualifiers

Some layouts work well in both landscape and portrait orientations, but most of them can benefit from adjustments. In the News Reader sample app, here is how the layout behaves in each screen size and orientation:

small screen, portrait: single pane, with logo
small screen, landscape: single pane, with logo
7” tablet, portrait: single pane, with action bar
7” tablet, landscape: dual pane, wide, with action bar
10” tablet, portrait: dual pane, narrow, with action bar
10” tablet, landscape: dual pane, wide, with action bar
TV, landscape: dual pane, wide, with action bar
So each of these layouts is defined in an XML file in the res/layout/ directory. To then assign each layout to the various screen configurations, the app uses layout aliases to match them to each configuration:

res/layout/onepane.xml:

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

    <fragment android:id="@+id/headlines"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent"
              android:name="com.example.android.newsreader.HeadlinesFragment"
              android:layout_width="match_parent" />
</LinearLayout>

res/layout/onepane_with_bar.xml:

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent">
    <LinearLayout android:layout_width="match_parent" 
                  android:id="@+id/linearLayout1"  
                  android:gravity="center"
                  android:layout_height="50dp">
        <ImageView android:id="@+id/imageView1" 
                   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                   android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                   android:src="@drawable/logo"
                   android:paddingRight="30dp"
                   android:layout_gravity="left"
                   android:layout_weight="0" />
        <View android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
              android:id="@+id/view1"
              android:layout_width="wrap_content"
              android:layout_weight="1" />
        <Button android:id="@+id/categorybutton"
                android:background="@drawable/button_bg"
                android:layout_height="match_parent"
                android:layout_weight="0"
                android:layout_width="120dp"
                style="@style/CategoryButtonStyle"/>
    </LinearLayout>

    <fragment android:id="@+id/headlines" 
              android:layout_height="fill_parent"
              android:name="com.example.android.newsreader.HeadlinesFragment"
              android:layout_width="match_parent" />
</LinearLayout>

res/layout/twopanes.xml:

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:orientation="horizontal">
    <fragment android:id="@+id/headlines"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent"
              android:name="com.example.android.newsreader.HeadlinesFragment"
              android:layout_width="400dp"
              android:layout_marginRight="10dp"/>
    <fragment android:id="@+id/article"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent"
              android:name="com.example.android.newsreader.ArticleFragment"
              android:layout_width="fill_parent" />
</LinearLayout>

res/layout/twopanes_narrow.xml:

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:orientation="horizontal">
    <fragment android:id="@+id/headlines"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent"
              android:name="com.example.android.newsreader.HeadlinesFragment"
              android:layout_width="200dp"
              android:layout_marginRight="10dp"/>
    <fragment android:id="@+id/article"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent"
              android:name="com.example.android.newsreader.ArticleFragment"
              android:layout_width="fill_parent" />
</LinearLayout>

Now that all possible layouts are defined, it’s just a matter of mapping the correct layout to each configuration using the configuration qualifiers. You can now do it using the layout alias technique:

res/values/layouts.xml:

<resources>
    <item name="main_layout" type="layout">@layout/onepane_with_bar</item>
    <bool name="has_two_panes">false</bool>
</resources>

res/values-sw600dp-land/layouts.xml:

<resources>
    <item name="main_layout" type="layout">@layout/twopanes</item>
    <bool name="has_two_panes">true</bool>
</resources>

res/values-sw600dp-port/layouts.xml:

<resources>
    <item name="main_layout" type="layout">@layout/onepane</item>
    <bool name="has_two_panes">false</bool>
</resources>

res/values-large-land/layouts.xml:

<resources>
    <item name="main_layout" type="layout">@layout/twopanes</item>
    <bool name="has_two_panes">true</bool>
</resources>

res/values-large-port/layouts.xml:

<resources>
    <item name="main_layout" type="layout">@layout/twopanes_narrow</item>
    <bool name="has_two_panes">true</bool>
</resources>

Implementing Adaptative UI Flows

Depending on the layout that your application is currently showing, the UI flow may be different. For example, if your application is in the dual-pane mode, clicking on an item on the left pane will simply display the content on the right pane; if it is in single-pane mode, the content should be displayed on its own (in a different activity).

Implementing Adaptative UI Flows

Since your implementation of each layout will be a little different, one of the first things you will probably have to do is determine what layout the user is currently viewing. For example, you might want to know whether the user is in “single pane” mode or “dual pane” mode. You can do that by querying if a given view exists and is visible:

public class NewsReaderActivity extends FragmentActivity {
    boolean mIsDualPane;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main_layout);

        View articleView = findViewById(R.id.article);
        mIsDualPane = articleView != null &&
                        articleView.getVisibility() == View.VISIBLE;
    }
}

Notice that this code queries whether the “article” pane is available or not, which is much more flexible than hard-coding a query for a specific layout.

Another example of how you can adapt to the existence of different components is to check whether they are available before performing an operation on them. For example, in the News Reader sample app, there is a button that opens a menu, but that button only exists when running on versions older than Android 3.0 (because it’s function is taken over by the ActionBar on API level 11+). So, to add the event listener for this button, you can do:

Button catButton = (Button) findViewById(R.id.categorybutton);
OnClickListener listener = /* create your listener here */;
if (catButton != null) {
    catButton.setOnClickListener(listener);
}

React According to Current Layout

Some actions may have a different result depending on the current layout. For example, in the News Reader sample, clicking on a headline from the headlines list opens the article in the right hand-side pane if the UI is in dual pane mode, but will launch a separate activity if the UI is in single-pane mode:

@Override
public void onHeadlineSelected(int index) {
    mArtIndex = index;
    if (mIsDualPane) {
        /* display article on the right pane */
        mArticleFragment.displayArticle(mCurrentCat.getArticle(index));
    } else {
        /* start a separate activity */
        Intent intent = new Intent(this, ArticleActivity.class);
        intent.putExtra("catIndex", mCatIndex);
        intent.putExtra("artIndex", index);
        startActivity(intent);
    }
}

Likewise, if the app is in dual-pane mode, it should set up the action bar with tabs for navigation, whereas if the app is in single-pane mode, it should set up navigation with a spinner widget. So your code should also check which case is appropriate:

final String CATEGORIES[] = { "Top Stories", "Politics", "Economy", "Technology" };

public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    ....
    if (mIsDualPane) {
        /* use tabs for navigation */
        actionBar.setNavigationMode(android.app.ActionBar.NAVIGATION_MODE_TABS);
        int i;
        for (i = 0; i < CATEGORIES.length; i++) {
            actionBar.addTab(actionBar.newTab().setText(
                CATEGORIES[i]).setTabListener(handler));
        }
        actionBar.setSelectedNavigationItem(selTab);
    }
    else {
        /* use list navigation (spinner) */
        actionBar.setNavigationMode(android.app.ActionBar.NAVIGATION_MODE_LIST);
        SpinnerAdapter adap = new ArrayAdapter(this,
                R.layout.headline_item, CATEGORIES);
        actionBar.setListNavigationCallbacks(adap, handler);
    }
}

Reuse Fragments in Other Activities

A recurring pattern in designing for multiple screens is having a portion of your interface that’s implemented as a pane on some screen configurations and as a separate activity on other configurations. For example, in the News Reader sample, the news article text is presented in the right side pane on large screens, but is a separate activity on smaller screens.

In cases like this, you can usually avoid code duplication by reusing the same Fragment subclass in several activities. For example, ArticleFragment is used in the dual-pane layout:

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:orientation="horizontal">
    <fragment android:id="@+id/headlines"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent"
              android:name="com.example.android.newsreader.HeadlinesFragment"
              android:layout_width="400dp"
              android:layout_marginRight="10dp"/>
    <fragment android:id="@+id/article"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent"
              android:name="com.example.android.newsreader.ArticleFragment"
              android:layout_width="fill_parent" />
</LinearLayout>

And reused (without a layout) in the activity layout for smaller screens (ArticleActivity):

ArticleFragment frag = new ArticleFragment();
getSupportFragmentManager().beginTransaction().add(android.R.id.content, frag).commit();

Naturally, this has the same effect as declaring the fragment in an XML layout, but in this case an XML layout is unnecessary work because the article fragment is the only component of this activity.

One very important point to keep in mind when designing your fragments is to not create a strong coupling to a specific activity. You can usually do that by defining an interface that abstracts all the ways in which the fragment needs to interact with its host activity, and then the host activity implements that interface:

For example, the News Reader app’s HeadlinesFragment does precisely that:

public class HeadlinesFragment extends ListFragment {
    ...
    OnHeadlineSelectedListener mHeadlineSelectedListener = null;

    /* Must be implemented by host activity */
    public interface OnHeadlineSelectedListener {
        public void onHeadlineSelected(int index);
    }
    ...

    public void setOnHeadlineSelectedListener(OnHeadlineSelectedListener listener) {
        mHeadlineSelectedListener = listener;
    }
}

Then, when the user selects a headline, the fragment notifies the listener specified by the host activity (as opposed to notifying a specific hard-coded activity):

public class HeadlinesFragment extends ListFragment {
    ...
    @Override
    public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> parent,
                            View view, int position, long id) {
        if (null != mHeadlineSelectedListener) {
            mHeadlineSelectedListener.onHeadlineSelected(position);
        }
    }
    ...
}