Collapsing margins in Android layouts

Question

Is it possible to make margins collapse in Android? Let's say I have a LinearLayout and add three TextViews, each with an android:layout_margin of 10dp. I get the following result:

actual result

However, I'd like to get this result:

expected result

I know that I could workaround this by setting different top/bottom margins for the different items:

set the top margin of the first item and the bottom margin of the last item to 10dp,
set the remainding top/bottom margins to 5dp,

but that makes the design more complicated (especially if the TextViews are dynamically created). Is there some way to make the margins behave like in CSS? (For an explanation of why this makes sense, see: What is the point of CSS collapsing margins?)

score 16 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 31 '12 at 18:54

What I typically do to fix this myself, is to simply cut the View's (i.e. your TextView) margin in half, and add that same number as padding to the containing ViewGroup (i.e. your LinearLayout). This way you will end up with even spacing around all items. For example:

<LinearLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:padding="5dip"
    >
    <TextView
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_margin="5dip"
        android:text="I'm a TextView!"
        />
    <TextView
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_margin="5dip"
        android:text="I'm a TextView!"
        />
    <TextView
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_margin="5dip"
        android:text="I'm a TextView!"
        />
</LinearLayout>

I'm surprised this is still the best answer I've found so far. It's only valid for this use case, but it doesn't work for complicated layouts where elements change height — Zach, Jun 13 '19 at 22:21

Prasad Pawar · Answer 2 · 2022-01-22T16:39:45.347

Posting a solution for someone who might need this in future. Works for static as well as AdapterViews where list items are dynamic.

Example parent container:

<RecyclerView
     ----
     android:padding_top="10dp"
     android:padding_start="10dp"
     android:padding_end="10dp"
     ---- 
>
</RecyclerView>

The padding ensures the spacing from top, left & right of the window.

Only thing remaining now is the vertical gap between two consecutive children & bottom gap after last child.

Example child / item view:

<RelativeLayout
     ----
     android:margin_bottom="10dp"
     ----
>
     <DynamicChild1 />
     <DynamicChild2 />
</RelativeLayout>

For this question specifically, the child view will just be a TextView with bottom margin.

This will give you the exact output as expected in the question.

Collapsing margins in Android layouts

2 Answers2