[android] What are the differences between LinearLayout, RelativeLayout, and AbsoluteLayout?

I am confused about the difference between LinearLayout, RelativeLayout, and AbsoluteLayout. Could someone please tell me the exact differences between them?

The answer is


Great explanation here:
https://www.cuelogic.com/blog/using-framelayout-for-designing-xml-layouts-in-android

LinearLayout arranges elements side by side either horizontally or vertically.

RelativeLayout helps you arrange your UI elements based on specific rules. You can specify rules like: align this to parent’s left edge, place this to the left/right of this elements etc.

AbsoluteLayout is for absolute positioning i.e. you can specify exact co-ordinates where the view should go.

FrameLayout allows placements of views along Z-axis. That means that you can stack your view elements one above the other.


LinearLayout - In LinearLayout, views are organized either in vertical or horizontal orientation.

RelativeLayout - RelativeLayout is way more complex than LinearLayout, hence provides much more functionalities. Views are placed, as the name suggests, relative to each other.

FrameLayout - It behaves as a single object and its child views are overlapped over each other. FrameLayout takes the size of as per the biggest child element.

Coordinator Layout - This is the most powerful ViewGroup introduced in Android support library. It behaves as FrameLayout and has a lot of functionalities to coordinate amongst its child views, for example, floating button and snackbar, Toolbar with scrollable view.


LinearLayout : A layout that organizes its children into a single horizontal or vertical row. It creates a scrollbar if the length of the window exceeds the length of the screen.It means you can align views one by one (vertically/ horizontally).

RelativeLayout : This enables you to specify the location of child objects relative to each other (child A to the left of child B) or to the parent (aligned to the top of the parent). It is based on relation of views from its parents and other views.

WebView : to load html, static or dynamic pages.

For more information refer this link:http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/layout-objects.html


Definitions:

  • Frame Layout: This is designed to block out an area on the screen to display a single item.
  • Linear Layout: A layout that arranges its children in a single column or a single row.
  • Relative Layout: This layout is a view group that displays child views in relative positions.
  • Table Layout: A layout that arranges its children into rows and columns.

More Information:

FrameLayout

FrameLayout is designed to block out an area on the screen to display a single item. Generally, FrameLayout should be used to hold a single child view, because it can be difficult to organize child views in a way that's scalable to different screen sizes without the children overlapping each other. You can, however, add multiple children to a FrameLayout and control their position within the FrameLayout by assigning gravity to each child, using the android:layout_gravity attribute.

Child views are drawn in a stack, with the most recently added child on top. The size of the FrameLayout is the size of its largest child (plus padding), visible or not (if the FrameLayout's parent permits).

RelativeLayout

A RelativeLayout is a very powerful utility for designing a user interface because it can eliminate nested view groups and keep your layout hierarchy flat, which improves performance. If you find yourself using several nested LinearLayout groups, you may be able to replace them with a single RelativeLayout.

(Current docs here)

TableLayout

A TableLayout consists of a number of TableRow objects, each defining a row (actually, you can have other children, which will be explained below). TableLayout containers do not display border lines for their rows, columns, or cells. Each row has zero or more cells; each cell can hold one View object. The table has as many columns as the row with the most cells. A table can leave cells empty. Cells can span columns, as they can in HTML.

The width of a column is defined by the row with the widest cell in that column.


Note: Absolute Layout is deprecated.


Examples related to android

Under what circumstances can I call findViewById with an Options Menu / Action Bar item? How to implement a simple scenario the OO way My eclipse won't open, i download the bundle pack it keeps saying error log getting " (1) no such column: _id10 " error java doesn't run if structure inside of onclick listener Cannot retrieve string(s) from preferences (settings) strange error in my Animation Drawable how to put image in a bundle and pass it to another activity FragmentActivity to Fragment A failure occurred while executing com.android.build.gradle.internal.tasks

Examples related to android-layout

How to check if a key exists in Json Object and get its value How to center the elements in ConstraintLayout Android - how to make a scrollable constraintlayout? Add ripple effect to my button with button background color? This view is not constrained vertically. At runtime it will jump to the left unless you add a vertical constraint Is it possible to put a ConstraintLayout inside a ScrollView? Differences between ConstraintLayout and RelativeLayout How to remove title bar from the android activity? How to have EditText with border in Android Lollipop Android: ScrollView vs NestedScrollView

Examples related to android-linearlayout

Android LinearLayout : Add border with shadow around a LinearLayout How to add a fragment to a programmatically generated layout? How to center the content inside a linear layout? How to add (vertical) divider to a horizontal LinearLayout? Fit Image in ImageButton in Android How can I create a border around an Android LinearLayout? Put buttons at bottom of screen with LinearLayout? How to show shadow around the linearlayout in Android? How to add border around linear layout except at the bottom? How do I use a compound drawable instead of a LinearLayout that contains an ImageView and a TextView

Examples related to android-relativelayout

How to switch from the default ConstraintLayout to RelativeLayout in Android Studio Differences between ConstraintLayout and RelativeLayout Moving from one activity to another Activity in Android RelativeLayout center vertical Android Relative Layout Align Center Android: show/hide a view using an animation How to set RelativeLayout layout params in code not in xml? How to create a RelativeLayout programmatically with two buttons one on top of the other? Percentage width in a RelativeLayout What are the differences between LinearLayout, RelativeLayout, and AbsoluteLayout?

Examples related to android-framelayout

Full screen background image in an activity What are the differences between LinearLayout, RelativeLayout, and AbsoluteLayout? Android center view in FrameLayout doesn't work