We often forget little things that matter the most and may put a greater impact on us. Either that’s salt for your lasagna or your best friend’s birthday night. But we surely won’t be giving much attention to these situations. Anyway, the same situation happens when we begin to plan for android mobile application development.
Any organization, the developer may miss little things that might add an extra touch to your application. Yes, we are talking about the skin of the application called Layout. The layout is a crucial element. An element of the android or iOS apps that defines people the clarity and delivers you the attention you need. We simply put this as UI or User Interface. But it is very important to choose the layout of your application that will simplify your service or your any sort of information or data that you want your application to have. And not only mobile applications but also website design and development involves layout which can’t be ignored.
For instance, if a house is filled with many objects, such as clothes, shoes, pictures, sofa, bed, books, bottles, etc, arranging them in a position is very essential that when you require any such need you can easily find them. The other aspect is, if things and objects are arranged in a particular way, the house will be much better to look at. It will give a subtle and neat view that will add absolute confidence.
Okay then, we will be focusing on the types of layouts and how can you choose and manage them so that things always end up in your favor.
What is a Layout?
The layout is simple words is how and in what ways you arrange your visual elements or objects. That visual object might be anything. But we will centralize our focus on best mobile application development.
Have you ever noticed how some applications are arranged in vertical or horizontal ways? Some are even arranged as a procedure and steps. Do they look nice? What feels good and better to look at? With matt colors, icons, infographics, and neat alignment, I suppose everything looks good. Put is it professional? Does it suit to work? In a professional way, the hierarchy of objects arranged together must be with a clear object with less noise.
Types of Layouts
- Web View Layout
- Frame Layout
- List View Layout
- Grid View Layout
- Relative Layout
- Horizontal Layout
- Linear Layout
- Vertical Layout
1- Web View Layout
WebView allows you to display web pages within your program. Could also provide an HTML code and use WebView to display it within your application. WebView transforms the application into a web app.
2- Frame Layout
With an option to add numerous such fame child to a Frame-Layout and manage their orientation by using the android: layout gravity feature to impart gravity to every child. One of the most basic layouts for organizing view variables is the Frame Layout. They’re made to cover a portion of the screen. Since it can be hard to analyze single viewpoints at a specific location on the screens without obscuring each other, a Frame Layout must be utilized to hold child views.
3- List view Layout
List-View and Grid-View are descendants of Adapter-View, yet these can be filled by constraining those to an Adapter that obtains data from an external source and builds a View for each data input.
List view is one of the parts of the Adapter view that acts as a link among Ui elements and the source of data, allowing data to be filled into the UI element. The adapter keeps the data and sends it to the adapter view, which can then collect the information from the adapter view and display it in a variety of ways, such as a carousel, a list, or a column.
4- Grid View Layout
As explained above, Grid-View is a part of Adapter-View that shows things in a looping grid. Objects from a spreadsheet or a collection are added to this grid arrangement. The adapter is used to show the data, and the setAdapter() function is used to connect the adapter to the Grid View. Grid View’s adapter’s primary function is to retrieve information from a table or collection and put each item of data in an appropriate item that shall be having in Grid View
5- Relative Layout
The Relative Pattern is a fairly versatile layout that may be used to create bespoke layouts on Android. It allows us to arrange our component/view based on the position of a relative or sibling component. It is considered the most flexible layout since it allows us to place the component wherever we want.
6- Horizontal Layout
Being a part of a Linear Layout, the horizontal layout is seen everywhere. It is exceptionally basic and popular in the developer’s world to use horizontal layout in both website and mobile application. As it is regarded as the simplest form and best way to keep things arranged and subtle, it rarely misinterprets the information or data.
And as the name suggests it is a horizontal structure consisting of areas and groups to be filled with the required data.
7- Linear Layout
The famous celebrity among all the Layout/patterns is Linear pattern. As it exists somehow in any grid or pattern and is considered by all, it receives a special place among many. The linear pattern is a subtle pattern for building layouts in Android. All components in a linear pattern are exhibited in a uniform manner, which means that all of the children of a linear pattern are presented as per their position. The value for the inclination field might be either horizontal or vertical.
8- Vertical Layout
Have you ever noticed the shelves of your room? What arrangements do they have? Aren’t they build one upon the other and blocks are made with glass to make a separate compartment?
That is what a vertical pattern is. It can be anywhere on the screen or display, anywhere in the top, middle, and bottom. And the children are divided into separate areas to fill in the data or information as required.
The Final words
It is always better to have options that can help in deciding what is required for what sort of task. The differentiation is very much helpful as per the nature of work that you undertake and your android application. And especially nowadays when things are much professional and complicated, people should be given an interface that clears their confusion rather than cloud their mind with doubts.
So? Which one does it suit your android application?
