Develop Reference

Google Play Store Cardview

I have been trying for a long time to make Cards similar to appearance that of Google Play Store, ie cards of Different sizes , with images and all inside the card. Any tips on how to proceed.

Basically you just create a layout (RelativeLayout, LinearLayout, etc) as a child of your cardview element and make it look however you want.
For example...
<android.support.v7.widget.CardView
android:layout_gravity="center"
android:layout_width="200dp"
android:layout_height="200dp"
card_view:cardElevation="2dp"
card_view:cardBackgroundColor="#android:color/white"
card_view:cardCornerRadius="2dp">
<RelativeLayout android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
//Your desired layout here
</RelativeLayout>
</android.support.v7.widget.CardView>
You can take a look at the MaterialList implementations for some good examples.

Baseline aligned TextView clips bottom line of multi-line text

I would like the items in a ListView in my android app to contain a check box on the left, followed by some text, followed by a button. I would like the check box and button to be baseline aligned with the text. To achieve this, I put all three in a LinearLayout which tries to baseline align its items by default. This works great, except that the bottom line of multi-line text is always clipped.
Here is an example of how it looks:
There is a related question on StackOverflow with the proposed solution to be to set layout_gravity = "fill" for the TextView, but that defeats the purpose as it disables the baseline align. Is there any solution to this problem that allows me to preserve the baseline align? This seems like a pretty basic problem that surely many people must encounter.
The only other solution I've found is to add some padding to the bottom of the text view, but this seems hacky and not robust against font sizes. I could set the padding procedurally from code based on the font size, but it seems like it may be tricky to get the correct values.
Here is a sample layout that illustrates the problem:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:paddingBottom="8dp"
android:paddingTop="8dp"
android:baselineAligned="true">
<CheckBox
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_marginLeft="9dp"
android:layout_marginRight="8dp"
android:textSize="16sp"/>
<TextView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_weight="1"
android:text="Woah, this is a long text line, enough that tit has to wrap to multiple lines, thus demonstrating our problem. In fact, it wraps to multiple lines! So many lines! I hope they all show up correctly!"
android:textSize="16sp"/>
<FrameLayout
android:layout_width="40dp"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<ImageView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_marginRight="12dp"
android:src="#drawable/ic_note_check_delete"/>
</FrameLayout>
</LinearLayout>

Optimize code for Android with multiple layouts

I am creating an Android Application having two layouts. All layouts have some common features like the top part is same and the only difference is at the bottom part.
Currently I have created two separate java files for two layouts. And I have simply copied the code which implements similar functionality like buttons etc
The part seen is the pic is the top part of the layout which is same in both the layouts;
Is there any way with which I can optimize the functionality by having reusable code

In my opinion this is helpful using <include> in your main layout.
STEP:
you have to create one XML file for your common layout.
topbar.xml
<FrameLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width=”match_parent”
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background="#color/titlebar_bg">
<ImageView android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:src="#drawable/gafricalogo" />
</FrameLayout>
like this way now you have to include this XML file to where you have to require.
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:gravity="center_horizontal">
<include layout="#layout/topbar"/>
...
</LinearLayout>

I think this tab bar can also be used for this..
below is the link for complete tutorial...
http://mindstick.com/Articles/7e659092-3046-4461-97ba-b2b28616241e/?tab%20layout%20android%20application

android:gravity="right" not working on all devices for Arabic and other RTL languages

I've got an Arabic Android application, and here is the XML code:
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:background="#drawable/greygradientbackground">
<ImageView android:id="#+id/logo"
android:layout_width="150dp"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:scaleType="centerCrop"
android:layout_margin="5dp"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true" />
<TextView android:id="#+id/title"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:textSize="16sp"
android:textColor="#000000"
android:layout_gravity="center_vertical|right"
android:gravity="right"
android:layout_toLeftOf="#id/logo"/>
</RelativeLayout>
The problem is that android:gravity works on some Android models and on others don't.
To be more specific, I've tested the app on many 2.3.3 android devices and the Arabic text is aligned right. However on other 2.3.3 devices the Arabic text is aligned left (which is wrong).
When I changed android:gravity="right" to android:gravity="left" the problem shifted from the second group of devices to the first.
So my question is how can I solve this issue especially that as far as I know there aren't a way to localize layouts based on a device model number.
Thanks in advance for any guidance because am totally lost. :(
UPDATE:
I searched about "How to align Arabic correctly on all Android versions?" but found nothing working on all my testing devices. Any suggestions please? I am sure there is a best practice approach for aligning Arabic text on Android.
UPDATE 2:
I tried to use a WebView instead of a TextView to align Arabic correctly using CSS styles. However, the Arabic text is showing in the WebView as strange characters.
Here is the Code:
mWebView.loadData("<html dir=\"rtl\">الأسم<body></body></html>", "text/html", "UTF-8");
The strange thing is that Arabic websites text is displayed correctly. So, what's the problem? :(

This is an expected behaviour. You may not use gravity="right", but gravity="end" instead, the same idea you apply to gravity="left" which you may use gravity="start", as well as layout_marginStart instead of layout_marginLeft
This way, Android will put the text to the "start" orientation, depending on the location. (for us, americans, we start to write from the left and we end on the right, but arabians start from the right and end on the left).
You can get the layout/text directions with the method getLayoutDirectionFromLocale(null), this will return View.LAYOUT_DIRECTION_LTR (left-to-right) or View.LAYOUT_DIRECTION_RTL (right-to-left, like arabic).
More info you can check here

change your textveiw in the layout to this....
<TextView android:id="#+id/title"
change your layout_width to "fill_parent"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:textSize="16sp"
android:textColor="#000000"
android:layout_gravity="center_vertical|right"
android:gravity="right"
android:layout_toLeftOf="#id/logo"
/>
You can change the thing in another way also....You can make changes in the activity class..as follows...let your TextView with id title is mapped in the activity class with a TextView object named "tv" the you can make it right aligned by writing this.
tv.setGravity(Gravity.RIGHT);
but in both the cases the width layout width should be "fill_parent"..
If you do not do this and keep it "wrap_content" then there is no space for the text to move... all the alignments (center,left,right...)remain the same.....
If both of these donot work out... then I would prefer you to use table layout and keep the text view in it....

try putting your textview inside a separate LinearLayout ,and set that layouts properties likethis:
android:layout_gravity="center_vertical" and android:orientation="vertical"
android:gravity="right"
note: dont specify layout_gravity of the textview.
hope this helps! it worked fine for me.
also you can try the solution provided here: Android Arabic text aligment

Another solution to achieve such behavior:
<LinearLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:orientation="horizontal">
<TextView
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layoutDirection="ltr"
android:layout_weight="1"
android:gravity="end"
android:padding="16dp"
android:text="#string/locale_switch_btn" />
</LinearLayout>
Note that, for correct gravity="end" alignment, in rtl locales you should set property:
android:layoutDirection="ltr"

Is it possible to include a MapView as an element of another activity?

Just as the title says...I want to include a MapView inside of another activity. For instance, I want the MapView to take up half of the screen, and below that, include some other widgets - text fields, buttons, whatever. I have been tinkering with it, but so far I have been unsuccessful - the map does take up only half the screen, but no widgets show up.
Any clues? Is this possible, or is the Google Map integration strictly using the map as a full screen?

Please post your xml layout!
You are just doing it wrong. :-D
A mapview will work like any other widget. I strongly believe there is a mistake in your layout.
This one will work for instance!
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:id="#+id/h1"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent">
<LinearLayout android:orientation="horizontal"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content">
<CheckBox
android:text="Satellite"
android:id="#+id/satellite"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content">
</CheckBox>
<ImageView
android:id="#+id/image"
android:layout_width="75dip"
android:layout_height="75dip"
android:layout_marginRight="6dip"
android:src="#drawable/uoicon" />
</LinearLayout>
<com.google.android.maps.MapView
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:id="#+id/mapview"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:clickable="true"
android:apiKey="0zDdYFYf6Ir2W-NuiHPLAoFjsq0nmqRhPfzjY3A"/>
</LinearLayout>

Just a guess but you're using a LinearLayout to contain the MapView and other widgets but you forgot to set the orientation to vertical? The default for LinearLayout is horizontal.
It came to mind because it's something I've done 2 or 3 times myself. Totally confusing as effectively the other widgets 'disappear' off the right-hand side of the screen. It eventually got engrained in my mind and I always make sure to explicitly specify orientation now when I use LinearLayout.