how to create universal UI design?

Question

I would like to learn from experienced developers Android, as you develop a UI for different screens? For example, now I have this problem:

I have an element (TextView), which should be placed as nearly aligned to the left, but not back to back, but with a slight indentation. Accordingly, the bigger the screen, so this should become more padding. If it is set fixed (px / dp), as layout_marginLeft, it will remain so for all screens.

Or, like I have a button, which should take approximately the width of the percent of 60, while the remaining 40 percent are left blank. How can this be done without specifying a fixed size?

Is it possible to design a universal screen, which will stretch to compress the distance between the elements (as in my case), and do other similar things? Or is it necessary for each screen to create a resource directory and a separate design for each screen? How do you usually do that?

Thank you in advance for your reply, it is very important to me.

This is a very general question. Google provides some guidelines and recommendations on best practices (linked to in Reno's answer), but you shouldn't expect us to divine the specifics of your problems, and then solve them for you. Read the guidelines and best practices, try to implement your UI, and if you run into difficulties, ask those questions — Chris Bye, Nov 10 '11 at 05:25

score 4 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:21

4

Some tips :

Use RelativeLayout when you want Views to be aligned with respect to each other.
Use LinearLayout with weight when you want that 60% - 40% thing
Use Custom Layouts when none of the above layouts work for you, i.e you want to customize its look and feel
It is alright to use different layouts for different screen sizes
Always use dip, - device independant pixels - instead of px
Read this article - Think like a web designer
Lastly read this article about supporting multiple screens.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:21

Community

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answered Nov 10 '11 at 05:16

Reno

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Thank you. But my questions - how can I do it? – user1023177 Nov 10 '11 at 05:20
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For font sizes, you should use SP (scaled pixels). but yes, for everything else you should use DP. – Chris Bye Nov 10 '11 at 05:22
SP wont really help you much. On big resolutions font will be still be small. – Sver Nov 10 '11 at 05:24
@user1023177 you might be able to enjoy some degree of success with the above tips, but I think that finally, developers end up making different layouts for different screen sizes. – Reno Nov 10 '11 at 05:28
But how can I set layout_marginLeft in order to do it extensible? – user1023177 Nov 10 '11 at 07:09

how to create universal UI design?

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