CODEWITHSUNDEEP
androidandroid-layout
user316117
user316117

Reputation: 8271

Creating device-specific custom Android Layouts

My company ships an Android app preloaded on an Android device to use with some industrial production equipment we make. We have both "phone" and "tablet" format devices, devices of different resolutions, locales, etc. So I'm familiar with having different xml folders for "layout" "layout-land", different image resources for "drawable-hdpi", "drawable-mdpi"; different language resources for "values-ru", values-ro", etc.

Now we have a customer that wants us to load our app on their own somewhat oddball aspect-ratio and resolution Android device, which they will supply us with, so I want to make a custom layout just for that device.

Assuming I make a layout folder called "layout-custom1", how do I tell my code to use that layout folder instead of defaulting to the regular layout or layout-land folders? I'd like to do it in just one place in my code because our app has a zillion screens/Activities and I'd prefer to not have to do it in before calling every setContentView().

And on that subject, what call can I make in my Java to ask what device I'm running on?

Edit: I'd prefer to avoid having different APKs because that will be a headache for our production staff.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1037

Answers (2)

CommonsWare
CommonsWare

Reputation: 1006604

Assuming I make a layout folder called "layout-custom1"

I think that will result in a build error. If not, it should, as you cannot invent new resource set qualifiers.

we have a customer that wants a version of our app for their own somewhat oddball aspect-ratio and resolution Android device so I want to make a custom layout just for that device

Ideally, find some existing resource set qualifiers that will cover that device, but no other devices that you support.

Or, use product flavors:

  • Create one for this customer and one (empty) one for everyone else

  • Override the resources as needed in the customer-specific flavor

  • Distribute the customer-specific flavor's APK to that customer and the other flavor to everyone else

Otherwise, you are pretty much stuck with modifying each setContentView() call, to use a customer-specific resource when running on this customer's device. You can simplify that somewhat via a common resource ID swizzling utility method, that takes R.layout.foo and returns R.layout.foo_funky for the customer's device and R.layout.foo for all other devices. Then, modify your setContentView(R.layout.foo) calls as setContentView(swizzler(R.layout.foo)).

Upvotes: 2

Henrique Cardone
Henrique Cardone

Reputation: 1

If you can deploy one more apk to this specific device, you can use the Runtime Resource Overlay (https://developer.sonymobile.com/2014/04/22/sony-contributes-runtime-resource-overlay-framework-to-android-code-example/) to create an apk containing only the necessary layouts (using the same ids), with no code.

Only overlays installed in /vendor/overlay, a directory writeable only by the device vendor (which is your case), are accepted, so you shouldn't have problem with this.

Also, remember to use the same signing certificate.

As explained on the link:

Runtime Resource Overlay hooks into the resource lookup framework, shadowing existing values or adding values for new configurations. The resource interface used by the application is unchanged, and the application is therefore not aware that RRO is currently applied, just as an application is currently not aware of its different resource configurations. Therefore, applications can take advantage of RRO without any source code modifications.

A key component of RRO is overlay packages. These are packages which contain alternate versions of one or more of an application’s resources. Any application may have its resources modified by one or more overlay packages. An overlay package only affects a single application, and in this context, the app is called the overlay’s target package.

Resource lookup, multiple overlays. The overlays are searched based on their priorities. The target package is always searched last.

Upvotes: 0

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