Sizing a custom view based upon the screen size

Question

I've been trying to find a solution to this, but perhaps I'm not understanding how the "onMeasure()" method works so well in Android! This is the first time I've made custom views "dynamic" in Android, so I learned that you need to override the "onMeasure()" method in order to resize your view depending upon how large the screen is. I would like the my view to be half the width of the screen, plus a little extra (this number is arbitrary, as long as its relatively small, between 3 and 5), so I wrote this code for the onMeasure method: ``` @Override public void onMeasure(int widthMeasureSpec, int heightMeasureSpec) { int halfWidth = (MeasureSpec.getSize(widthMeasureSpec) / 2) - 5; this.setMeasuredDimension((int) halfWidth, (int) halfWidth); } ``` I'm sure this a terrible way of going about things because everywhere I've found online has so much more code than I do while trying to accomplish something similar! When I place these views next to each other in the XML, this first view is co…

Accepted Answer

I actually accomplished this today through a little bit of experimentation based upon what Tim said. I moved away from "onMeasure()" and only wrote this code for it:

```
@Override
public void onMeasure(int widthMeasureSpec, int heightMeasureSpec)
{
    // Call the super class.
    super.onMeasure(widthMeasureSpec, heightMeasureSpec);

// Set the dimensions of this view.
    this.setMeasuredDimension((int) width, (int) width);
}
```

Width is a global float. Where does width come from? I derived width from this method that I wrote in the view to resize:

```
public void initSize(float size)
{
    width = size;
    this.invalidate();
}
```

I call "invalidate()" to redraw the view. Something has to call this method though, so I do so in the activity. First, I get the size of the screen in the Activity, not the View, using this code:

```
Display thisDisplay = this.getWindowManager().getDefaultDisplay();
Point desiredSize = new Point();
display.getSize(desiredSize);
int width = size.x;
```

You used to be able to call a method called "getWidth()" on "thisDisplay" but this method is now depreciated, so you should use "getSize()" instead. Finally, right after you initialize the constructor, call the "initSize()" method:

```
nameBox = (InfoBoxView) findViewById(R.id.nameBox);
    nameBox.initSize(width);
```

Now, all the views will be the same size. I don't know if this is the best way to do this, but it works for now and I figured I'd post it here so everyone knew. :)

Sizing a custom view based upon the screen size

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