Android Textview with width 0 is forcing content to disappear below it

Question

I have a TextView whose width should not exceed the ImageView above it. Both image and text are downloaded from server and I don't know their dimensions (can't make assumptions either). I went through the logic to wrap the text content using this SO post.

Here is my layout XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/parentLL"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content">

    <LinearLayout android:orientation="vertical"
        android:id="@+id/LL1"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content">
        <ImageView
            android:id="@+id/image1"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
        <TextView
            android:id="@+id/text1"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:ellipsize="end"
            android:width="0dp"
            android:text="This is a string whose width may or may not be more than the image downloaded" />
    </LinearLayout>

    <TextView android:background="@android:color/holo_red_dark"
        android:id="@+id/text2"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:text="Second Text"/>
</LinearLayout>

With this code, the TextView at the end (text2) does not even show up. There are 2 solutions to this issue :

1. Apply android:maxLines="5" to the text1. Problem with this approach is that Text1 view would always be 5 lines high (I understand 'lines' is not a unit of height, but that's what I see visually). So if the text content is just one word, there would be a big white space below. And then text2 shows up.
2. Change topmost linear layout (parentLL) to RelativeLayout. text2 can then be used with alignBelow=LL1. This works as expected. But I cannot migrate the topmost view to RelativeLayout, because this view is from a library not in my control. I can only modify LL1 and it's children. Due to my code, other views below (like text2) are suffering (by not showing up).
3. There is a third approach for setting the textview as a compound drawable on ImageView. I guess that might work (haven't tested), but my requirement is to show the TextView if image download has failed (which can be detected only after a while). So I need to have a TextView. Also, my LinearLayout LL1 can have other children too.

I would request for some help understanding :

1. Why is my code not showing up the content below the textview 'text1'? With width=0 on textview it seems to set the height of the parent to be match_parent.
2. How is RelativeLayout able to handle this smoothly ? Can I replicate any of that behavior in TextView's onMeasure ? Assume I have callbacks to detect image has been downloaded, and I can get image width also.

Answer 1

I think what you are running into is a conflict of setting the width and height but not setting the layout weight, which is a key factor in how Linear Layouts work. If you add one more vertical LinearLayout in there and then move @id/text2 into it, you should be set. You'll need something like the following (obviously modified to your specs, this was just a quick test). Note my use of android:layout_weight,

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    >

    <LinearLayout
        android:orientation="vertical"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="0dp"
        android:layout_weight="1">

        <TextView
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge"
            android:text="Large Text"
            android:id="@+id/textView3" />
    </LinearLayout>

    <LinearLayout
        android:orientation="vertical"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="0dp"
        android:layout_weight="1">

        <TextView
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge"
            android:text="Large Text"
            android:id="@+id/textView2" />
    </LinearLayout>
</LinearLayout>

Which splits the screen in half vertically as shown in this picture,

Photo of resulting layout

Answer 2

I had to wrap the TextView in a RelativeLayout, which was wrapped by a LinearLayout. Not happy with this solution, but this is the only way for now.