4.

Android RelativeLayout with Examples

In android, RelativeLayout is a ViewGroup which is used to specify the position of
child View instances relative to each other (Child A to the left of Child B) or relative to the parent
(Aligned to the top of parent).

Following is the pictorial representation of relative layout in android applications.

In android, RelativeLayout is very useful to design user interface because by using relative layout
we can eliminate the nested view groups and keep our layout hierarchy flat, which improves
performance of application.

Android Positioning Views in Relative Layout

As we discussed, in RelativeLayout we need to specify the position of child views relative to each
other or relative to the parent. In case if we didn’t specify the position of child views, by default
all child views are positioned to top-left of the layout.

Following are the some of most useful layout properties available to views in RelativeLayout.

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 Attribute Description

layout_alignParentTop If it specified “true”, the top edge of view will match the
top edge of parent.

layout_alignParentBottom If it specified “true”, the bottom edge of view will match

the bottom edge of parent.

layout_alignParentLeft If it specified “true”, the left edge of view will match the
left edge of parent.

layout_alignParentRight If it specified “true”, the right edge of view will match the
right edge of parent.

layout_centerInParent If it specified “true”, the view will be aligned to centre of

parent.

layout_centerHorizontal If it specified “true”, the view will be horizontally centre

aligned within its parent.

layout_centerVertical If it specified “true”, the view will be vertically centre

aligned within its parent.

layout_above It accepts another sibling view id and places the view

above the specified view id.

layout_below It accepts another sibling view id and places the view

below the specified view id.

layout_toLeftOf It accepts another sibling view id and places the view left
of the specified view id.

layout_toRightOf It accepts another sibling view id and places the view right
of the specified view id.

layout_toStartOf It accepts another sibling view id and places the view to

start of the specified view id.

layout_toEndOf It accepts another sibling view id and places the view to

end of the specified view id.

Android RelativeLayout Example

Following is the example of creating a RelativeLayout with different controls in android

application.

Create a new android application using android studio and give names as RelativeLayout. In
case if you are not aware of creating an app in android studio check this article Android Hello
World App.

Now open an activity_main.xml file from \res\layout path and write the code like as shown
below

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activity_main.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="[Link]
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:paddingLeft="10dp"
android:paddingRight="10dp">
<Button
android:id="@+id/btn1"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
android:text="Button1" />
<Button
android:id="@+id/btn2"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:text="Button2" />
<Button
android:id="@+id/btn3"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:text="Button3" />

<Button
android:id="@+id/btn4"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
android:text="Button4" />
<Button
android:id="@+id/btn5"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignBottom="@+id/btn2"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:text="Button5" />
<Button
android:id="@+id/btn6"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_above="@+id/btn4"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:text="Button6" />
<Button
android:id="@+id/btn7"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_toEndOf="@+id/btn1"
android:layout_toRightOf="@+id/btn1"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:text="Button7" />
</RelativeLayout>

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Once we are done with creation of layout, we need to load the XML layout resource from
our activity onCreate() callback method, for that open main activity file [Link] from \
java\[Link] path and write the code like as shown below.

[Link]
package [Link];
import [Link];
import [Link];

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
[Link](savedInstanceState);
setContentView([Link].activity_main);
}
}

If we observe above code we are calling our layout using setContentView method in the form
of [Link].layout_file_name. Here our xml file name is activity_main.xml so we used file
name activity_main.

Generally, during the launch of our activity, onCreate() callback method will be called by android
framework to get the required layout for an activity.

Output
When we run above example using android virtual device (AVD) we will get a result like as shown
below.

This is how we can use RelativeLayout in android applications based on our requirements.