Android: How to size buttons?

Question

I'm using several buttons in my app, but both layout_width/height "wrap_content" and "fill_parent" looks weird. The former being to small and the latter too large - both looks weird, and the former is not easy to hit with your finger.

How should I size buttons? Is it typical to define their sizes in dip? Or should I use "fill_parent" with a padding? Buttons looks weird in my app, not so in others.

Solution

That is difficult to answer in the abstract. Here are some techniques to consider:

• Use android:padding="4dip" (or some other value) to make a wrap_content Button a bit bigger

• Use android:textSize on the Button to make the content bigger (use some size in scaled pixels, or sp)

• If you want the buttons to fill the space but divide it among themselves, use a LinearLayout, give each button a height (or width, depending if column or row) of 0px, then use android:layout_weight to allocate space between them on a percentage basis. Here is a sample project outlining this technique.

Comments

[forneo]

OK. I ended up using paddingLeft and paddingRight of 20dip and paddingTop and paddingBottom of 10dip. Looks good that way and should be flexible with both layout changes and translation.