build dynamic android layouts

Question

am trying to build android app with a dynamic layout to support multiple screens

am thinking about build all my app for a certain device with a fixed dimensions like Motorola Droid , say that the button will be 50 width 50 height

and after i finished all the app , i will reedit the sizes of elements to be a ratio betweetn the right place of them and the dimensions of the new device

also Drawables will be Scalable Drawables and i will use only the Drawables folder and remove others : - drawable-hdpi - drawable-ldpi - drawable-mdpi

so i will have only one Drawables folder and only one layout xml file for every activity

and most of my layouts will be hard coded using java

so the question is : is it a true method for development ?!

may be you will ask , why ?

so my answer is , as i think my method is easer than using :

• res/layout/my_layout.xml // layout for normal screen size ("default")
• res/layout-small/my_layout.xml // layout for small screen size
• res/layout-large/my_layout.xml // layout for large screen size
• res/layout-xlarge/my_layout.xml // layout for extra large screen size

• res/layout-xlarge-land/my_layout.xml // layout for extra large in landscape orientation

• res/drawable-mdpi/my_icon.png // bitmap for medium density

• res/drawable-hdpi/my_icon.png // bitmap for high density
• res/drawable-xhdpi/my_icon.png // bitmap for extra high density

Answer 1

AFAIK you can manage resoution variation of different devices by keeping the images in drawable-hdpi,drawable-mdpi,drawable-ldpi folder. then screen sizes by providing different layout for different screen size categories by specifying layout-small,layout-large,layout-xlarge. also you can increase number of devices supported by using nine patch and relative layout check this google official documentation regarding this topic.

hope this help.

thanks.

Answer 2

The simplest (and probably the best) way to create layouts that support all screen sizes is to use a RelativeLayout.