android-Screen Compatibility Mode

>Notice: If you've developed an application for a version of Android lower than Android 3.0, but it does resize properly for larger screens such as tablets, you should disable screen compatibility mode in order to maintain the best user experience. 

Since Android 1.6, Android has supported a variety of screen sizes and does most of the work to resize application layouts so that they properly fit each screen. However, if your application does not successfully follow the guide to Supporting Multiple Screens, then it might encounter some rendering issues on larger screens.For applications with this problem, screen compatibility mode can make the application a little more usable on larger screens.

>There are two versions of screen compatibility mode with slightly different behaviors:

Version 1 (Android 1.6 - 3.1)

The system draws the application's UI in a "postage stamp" window. That is, the system draws the application's layout the same as it would on a normal size handset (emulating a 320dp x 480dp screen), with a black border that fills the remaining area of the screen.

This was introduced with Android 1.6 to handle apps that were designed only for the original screen size of 320dp x 480dp. Because there are so few active devices remaining that run Android 1.5, almost all applications should be developed against Android 1.6 or greater and should not have version 1 of screen compatibility mode enabled for larger screens. This version is considered obsolete.

To disable this version of screen compatibility mode, you simply need to set android:minSdkVersion orandroid:targetSdkVersion to "4" or higher, or set android:resizeable to "true".

Version 2 (Android 3.2 and greater)

The system draws the application's layout the same as it would on a normal size handset (approximately emulating a 320dp x 480dp screen), then scales it up to fill the screen. This essentially "zooms" in on your layout to make it bigger, which will usually cause artifacts such as blurring and pixelation in your UI.

This was introduced with Android 3.2 to further assist applications on the latest tablet devices when the applications have not yet implemented techniques for Supporting Multiple Screens.

In general, large screen devices running Android 3.2 or higher allow users to enable screen compatibility mode when the application does not explicitly declare that it supports large screens in the manifest file. When this is the case, an icon (with outward-pointing arrows) appears next to the clock in the system bar, which allows the user to toggle screen compatibility mode on and off (figure 3). An application can also explicitly declare that it does not support large screens such that screen compatibility mode is always enabled and the user cannot disable it. (How to declare your application's support for large screens is discussed in the following sections.)

> If you've developed your application primarily for versions of Android lower than 3.0, but  your application does resize properly  for larger screens such as tablets,  you should disable screen compatibility mode  in order to maintain the best user experience. Otherwise, users may enable screen compatibility mode and experience your application in a less-than-ideal format.

Caution: When running on Android 3.0 and greater, this also has the effect of enabling the Holographic theme for you UI, adding the Action Bar to your activities, and removing the Options Menu button in the system bar.

When your application is targeting Android 3.2 (API level 13) or higher, you can affect whether compatibility mode is enabled for certain screens by using the <supports-screens> element.

Note: Screen compatibility mode is not a mode in which you should want your application to run—it causes pixelation and blurring in your UI, due to zooming. The proper way to make your application work well on large screens is to follow the guide to Supporting Multiple Screens and provide alternative layouts for different screen sizes.

By default, when you've set either android:minSdkVersion or android:targetSdkVersion to "11" or higher, screen compatibility mode is not available to users. If either of these are true and your application does not resize properly for larger screens, you can choose to enable screen compatibility mode in one of the following ways:

In your manifest file, add the  <supports-screens>  element and specify the android:compatibleWidthLimitDp  attribute to  "320" :

<supports-screens android:compatibleWidthLimitDp="320" />

• Note: Currently, screen compatibility mode only emulates handset screens with a 320dp width, so screen compatibility mode is not applied to any device if your value for android:compatibleWidthLimitDp is larger than 320.

• If your application is functionally broken when resized for large screens and you want to force users into screen compatibility mode (rather than simply providing the option), you can use theandroid:largestWidthLimitDp attribute:

  <supports-screens android:largestWidthLimitDp="320" />

  This works the same as android:compatibleWidthLimitDp except it force-enables screen compatibility mode and does not allow users to disable it.