Can the Android layout folder contain subfolders

Question

Right now  I m storing every XML layout file inside the  res layout  folder  so it is feasible and simple to manage small projects  but when there is a case of large and heavy projects  then there should be a hierarchy and sub-folders needed inside the layout folder  for e g  layout -- layout personal    -- personal detail xml    -- personal other xml --layout address   -- address1 xml   -- address2 xml  Like the same way  we would like to have sub-folders for the large application  so is there any way to do so inside the Android project  I am able to create layout-personal and layout address sub-folders inside the layout folder  but when the time comes to access the XML layout file using R layout           at that time there is no any XML layout pop-up inside the menu

User · Answer

I use Android File Grouping plugin for Android Studio.It doesn't really allows you to create sub-folders, but it can DISPLAY your files and resources AS they are in different folders. And this is exactly what I wanted.

You can install "Android File Grouping" plugin by

Windows:

Android Studio -> File -> Settings -> Plugins.

Mac:

Android Studio -> Android Studio Tab (Top Left) -> Preferences -> Plugins -> Install JetBrains Plugin..

For Mac, I was able to test it and was not able to search for the plugin. So I downloaded the plugin from here and used the Install plugin from disk option from the above setting.

User · Answer

Within a module  to have a combination of flavors  flavor resources  layout  values  and flavors resource resources  the main thing to keep in mind are two things   When adding resource directories in res srcDirs for flavor  keep in mind that in other modules and even in src main res of the same module  resource directories are also added  Hence  the importance of using an add-on assignment      so as not to overwrite all existing resources with the new assignment   The path that is declared as an element of the array is the one that contains the resource types  that is  the resource types are all the subdirectories that a res folder contains normally such as color  drawable  layout  values  etc  The name of the res folder can be changed    An example would be to use the path  quot src flavor res values strings-ES quot  but observe that the practice hierarchy has to have the subdirectory values   -- module      -- flavor        -- res           -- values              -- strings-ES                 -- values                    -- strings xml                 -- strings xml    The framework recognizes resources precisely by type  that is why normally known subdirectories cannot be omitted  Also keep in mind that all the strings xml files that are inside the flavor would form a union so that resources cannot be duplicated  And in turn this union that forms a file in the flavor has a higher order of precedence before the main of the module  flavor           res srcDirs                   quot src flavor res values strings-ES quot               Consider the strings-ES directory as a custom-res which contains the resource types  GL

User · Answer

Not possible  but the layout folder is sorted by name  So  I prepend the layout file names with my package names  E g  for the two packages  buying  and  playing    buying bought tracks xml buying buy tracks xml playing edit playlist xml playing play playlist xml playing show playlists xml

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If you use the method in the approved answer  and want to improve it on a bit  then change the gradle setting like this       sourceSets       main           res srcDirs                 file  src main res layouts    listFiles                 src main res layouts                src main res                      So if you add more folders and layouts  you don t need to come back here and append a long list of source folders  let gradle get all the folders for you

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I just wanted to add onto eskis  fantastic answer for people having trouble   Note  This will only work and look like separate directories inside the  project  view  not the  android  view unfortunately    Tested with the following  BuildToolsVersion   23 0 0 gradle 1 2 3  amp  1 3 0  This is how I got mine to work with an already built project    Copy all of the XML files out of your layout directory  and put them into a directory on the desktop or something for backup  Delete the entire layout directory  Make sure you backed everything up from step 1     Right click the res directory and select new   directory  Name this new directory  layouts    This can be whatever you want  but it will not be a  fragment  directory or  activity  directory  that comes later   Right click the new  layouts  directory and select new   directory   This will be the name of the type of XML files you will have in it  for example   fragments  and  activities    Right click the  fragment  or  activities  directory  Note  this doesn t have to be  fragment  or  activities  that s just what i m using as an example  and select new   directory once again and name this directory  layout    Note  This MUST be named  layout     very important   Put the XML files you want inside the new  layout  directory from the backup you made on your desktop  Repeat steps 5 - 7 for as many custom directories as you desire  Once this is complete  go into your modules gradle build file and create a sourceSets definition like this    Make sure  src main res layouts   amp   src main res  are always the bottom two     Like I am showing below    sourceSets       main           res srcDirs                                              src main res layouts activities                            src main res layouts fragments                            src main res layouts content                            src main res layouts                            src main res                             Profit        But seriously   this is how I got it to work  Let me know if anyone has any questions   I can try to help   Pictures are worth more than words

User · Answer

Now we can easily do with JetBrains plugin called  Android File Grouping    check out this link  Android File Grouping

User · Answer

I think the most elegant solution to this problem  given that subfolders are not allowed  is to prepend the file names with the name of the folder you would have placed it inside of  For example  if you have a bunch of layouts for an Activity  Fragment  or just general view called  places  then you should just prepend it with places my layout name  At least this solves the problem of organizing them in a way that they are easier to find within the IDE  It s not the most awesome solution  but it s better than nothing

User · Answer

If you are developing on a linux or a mac box  a workaround would be  to create subfolders  which include symbolic links to your layoutfiles  Just use the ln command with -s     ln -s PATH TO YOUR FILE   The Problem with this is  that your Layout folder still contains all the  xml files  But you could although select them by using the sub-folders  It s the closest thing  to what you would like to have   I just read  that this might work with Windows  too if you are using Vista or later  There is this mklink command  Just google it  have never used it myself   Another problem is  if you have the file opened and try to open it again out the plugin throws a NULL Pointer Exception  But it does not hang up

User · Answer

Cannot have subdirectories  easily  but you can have additional resource folders  Surprised no one mentioned it already  but to keep the default resource folders  and add some more       sourceSets           main res srcDirs      src main java XYZ ABC

User · Answer

The top answer by  eski is good  but the code is not elegant to use  so I wrote a groovy script in gradle for general use  It s applied to all build type and product flavor and not only can be use for layout  you can also add subfolder for any other resources type such as drawable  Here is the code put it in android block of project-level gradle file    sourceSets each       def rootResDir   it res srcDirs 0      def getSubDirs     dirName - gt          def layoutsDir   new File rootResDir  dirName          def subLayoutDirs              if  layoutsDir exists                  layoutsDir eachDir                   subLayoutDirs add it                                 return subLayoutDirs           def resDirs                  anims                colors                drawables                drawables-hdpi                drawables-mdpi                drawables-xhdpi                drawables-xxhdpi                layouts                valuess             def srcDirs   resDirs collect           getSubDirs it            it res srcDirs    srcDirs  rootResDir      How to do in practice   For example  I want to create subfolder named activity for layout  add a string by any name in resDirs variable such as layouts  then the layout xml file should be put in res layouts activity layout xxx xml   If I want to create subfolder named selectors for drawable  add a string by any name in resDirs variable such as drawables  then the drawable xml file should be put in res drawables selectors drawable xxx xml   The folder name such as layouts and drawables is defined in resDirs variable  it can be any string  All subfolder created by you such as activity or selectors are regarded as the same as res folder  So in selectors folder  we must create drawable folder additionally and put xml files in drawable folder  after that gradle can recognize the xml files as drawable normally

User · Answer

A way i did it was to create a separate res folder at the same level as the actual res folder in your project  then you can use this in your apps build gradle  android         other stuff      sourceSets           main res srcDirs     src main res   file  src main layouts   listFiles                then each subfolder of your new res folder can be something relating to each particular screen or something in your app  and each folder will have their own layout   drawable   values etc keeping things organised and you dont have to update the gradle file manually like some of these other answers require  Just sync your gradle each time you add a new resource folder so it knows about it  and make sure to add the relevant subfolders before adding your xml files

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Step 1  Right click on layout - show in explorer Step 2  Open the layout folder and create the subfolders directly  layout 1  layout 2     Step 3  open layout 1 create folder layout  note  mandatory name is layout   open layout 2 folder create layout subdirectory  note  mandatory name is layout      Step 4  Copy the xml files into the layout subdirectories in layout 1 and layout 2 Step 5  Run the code in buid grade  module app  and hit sync now      sourceSets       main           res srcDirs                                  src   main   res   layout   layout 1                   src   main   res   layout   layout 2                    src   main   res                           Step 6  Summary  All the steps above will only help clustering folders and display in  project  mode  while  android  mode will display as normal  So I draw that maybe naming prefixes is as effective as clustering folders

User · Answer

While all the proposals for multiple resource sets may work  the problem is that the current logic for the Android Studio Gradle plug-in will not update the resource files after they have changed for nested resource sets   The current implementation attempts to check the resource directories using startsWith    so a directory structure that is nested  i e  src main res layout layouts and src main res layout layouts category2  will choose src main res layout layouts consistently and never actually update the changes   The end result is that you have to rebuild clean the project each time   I submitted a patch at https   android-review googlesource com   c 157971  to try to help resolve things

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Small Problem  I am able to achieve subfolders by following the top answer to this question   However  as the project grows bigger  you will have many sub-folders   sourceSets       main           res srcDirs                                      src main res layouts somethingA                        src main res layouts somethingB                        src main res layouts somethingC                        src main res layouts somethingD                        src main res layouts somethingE                        src main res layouts somethingF                        src main res layouts somethingG                        src main res layouts somethingH                        src main res layouts    many more                        src main res                          Not a big problem  but    it s not pretty as the list become very long   you have to change your app build gradle everytime you add a new folder      Improvement  So I wrote a simple Groovy method to grab all nested folders   def getLayoutList path        File file   new File path      def throwAway   file path split      0      def newPath   file path substring throwAway length     1      def array   file list   collect              newPath    it             array push  src main res        return array     Paste this method outside of the android       block in your app build gradle     How to use  For a structure like this    lt project root gt   -- app  lt ---------- TAKE NOTE  -- build  -- build gradle  -- gradle  -- gradle properties  -- gradlew  -- gradlew bat  -- local properties  -- settings gradle   Use it like this   android       sourceSets           main               res srcDirs   getLayoutList  app src main res layouts                        If you have a structure like this    lt project root gt   -- my special app name  lt ---------- TAKE NOTE  -- build  -- build gradle  -- gradle  -- gradle properties  -- gradlew  -- gradlew bat  -- local properties  -- settings gradle   You will use it like this   android       sourceSets           main               res srcDirs   getLayoutList  my special app name src main res layouts                          Explanation  getLayoutList   takes a relative path as an argument  The relative path is relative to the root of the project  So when we input  app src main res layouts    it will return all the subfolders  name as an array  which will be exactly the same as                                      src main res layouts somethingA                        src main res layouts somethingB                        src main res layouts somethingC                        src main res layouts somethingD                        src main res layouts somethingE                        src main res layouts somethingF                        src main res layouts somethingG                        src main res layouts somethingH                        src main res layouts    many more                        src main res                  Here s the script with comments for understanding   def getLayoutList path           let s say path    app src main res layouts      File file   new File path       def throwAway   file path split      0         throwAway    app       def newPath   file path substring throwAway length     1      1 is for            newPath   src main res layouts       def array   file list   collect              println  filename    it      uncomment for debugging            newPath    it              array push  src main res           println  result    array      uncomment for debugging      return array       Hope it helps

User · Answer

Now with Android Studio and Gradle  you can have multiple resource folders in your project  Allowing to organize not only your layout files but any kind of resources   It s not exactly a sub-folder  but may separte parts of your application   The configuration is like this   sourceSets       main           res srcDirs     src main res    src main res2             Check the documentation

User · Answer

You CAN do this with gradle   I ve made a demo project showing how   The trick is to use gradle s ability to merge multiple resource folders  and set the res folder as well as the nested subfolders in the sourceSets block     The quirk is that you can t declare a container resource folder before you declare that folder s child resource folders   Below is the sourceSets block from the build gradle file from the demo   Notice that the subfolders are declared first   sourceSets       main           res srcDirs                              src main res layouts layouts category2                    src main res layouts                    src main res                        Also  the direct parent of your actual resource files  pngs  xml layouts  etc    does still need to correspond with the specification

User · Answer

Well  the short answer is no  But you definitely can have multiple res folders  That  I think  is as close as you can get to having subfolders for the layout folder  Here s how you do it

User · Answer

Top answers have several disadvantages  you have to add new layout paths  AS places new resources to res layouts folder instead of res values   Combining several answers I wrote similar   sourceSets       main           res srcDirs                                              src main res                           file  src main res layouts    listFiles                             src main res layouts                              I made folders with this article  http   alexzh com tutorials how-to-store-layouts-in-different-folders-in-android-project   In order to create subfolders you should use this menu  New   Folder   Res Folder   UPDATE  After a couple of weeks I found that changes in resources are not noticed by Android Studio  So  some weird bugs appear  For instance  layouts continue to show old sizes  margins  Sometimes AS doesn t find new XML-files  especially during run-time   Sometimes it mixes view ids  references to another XML-file   It s often required to press Build  gt  Clean Project or Build  gt  Rebuild Project  Read Rebuild required after changing xml layout files in Android Studio

User · Answer

Check Bash Flatten Folder script that converts folder hierarchy to a single folder

User · Answer

The answer is no   I would like to draw your attention towards this book Pro Android 2 that states      It is also worth noting a few   constraints regarding resources    First  Android supports only a linear   list of files within the predefined   folders under res  For example  it   does not support nested folders under   the layout folder  or the other   folders under res        Second  there are some similarities   between the assets folder and the raw   folder under res  Both folders can   contain raw files  but the files   within raw are considered resources   and the files within assets are not       Note that because the contents of the   assets folder are not considered   resources  you can put an arbitrary   hierarchy of folders and files within   it

[android] Can the Android layout folder contain subfolders?

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