How to set height,width for activity or how to make the activity window look in desired size..

This post talks about

- how to display a activity of fixed width & height ?

- why the activity screen is of full screen ? how to reduce the size of activity size?


These were the questions which were running through my mind, when i first started implementing activities in android.

This applies not only to activities it is even for dialogs.How to position the dialog in the desired place in the screen.Sometime we want alert to be displayed on the top right, rather at the center of the screen as user might be reading something.

Lets work on it more to find the answers...!!


1 step - To make the activity to have a desired size rather than full screen, set the theme for your activity as Dialog like below.

android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Dialog"

In AndroidManifest.xml

<activity android:name="urldisplay"
                  android:label="@string/app_name"
   android:windowSoftInputMode="stateAlwaysVisible|adjustPan"
  android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Dialog">
</activity>

2 step - We need to get the window from dialog and set the layout attributes, then the window will be positioned accordingly in the screen. This can be done as below.

 WindowManager.LayoutParams params = getWindow().getAttributes();
        params.x = -100;
        params.height = 70;
        params.width = 1000;
        params.y = -50;

        this.getWindow().setAttributes(params);

here is the complete example.




layout.xml (main.xml)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
       android:orientation="horizontal"
              android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
              android:layout_height="fill_parent"
              >

<EditText android:id="@+id/textbox1"
android:hint="eg. pubs,restuarants "
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:maxLines="1"/>

<Button android:id="@+id/press"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="@string/hello"/>


</LinearLayout>

urldisplay.java

package com.android.urldisplay;

import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.EditText;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.WindowManager;
import android.app.Notification;
import android.app.NotificationManager;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.view.View;
import android.content.Context;
import android.net.Uri;
import android.app.PendingIntent;
import android.os.Handler;
import android.view.inputmethod.InputMethodManager;

public class urldisplay extends Activity
{
 EditText nameText;
 private static final int APP_ID = 0; 
 private NotificationManager mManager;
        private Handler mHandler = new Handler();
 
    private Runnable mShowInputMethodTask = new Runnable() {
         public void run() {
             showInputMethodForQuery();
         }
     };
    /** Called when the activity is first created. */
    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState)
    {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);
 
 WindowManager.LayoutParams params = getWindow().getAttributes();
        params.x = -100;
        params.height = 70;
        params.width = 1000;
        params.y = -50;

        this.getWindow().setAttributes(params);
        nameText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.textbox1);

 Context context;
 context = getApplicationContext();
        mManager = (NotificationManager) getSystemService(context.NOTIFICATION_SERVICE);
   
        Button press = (Button)findViewById(R.id.press);

        press.setOnClickListener(new Button.OnClickListener(){

            public void onClick(View v) {
         
   String url = nameText.getText().toString();
   if (!url.startsWith("http://") && !url.startsWith("https://"))
    url = "http://" + url;
 
   Intent browserIntent = new Intent("android.intent.action.VIEW", Uri.parse(url)); 
   browserIntent.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK); 
   mManager.notify(url);
   startActivity(browserIntent);  
   finish();
   
                  }
        }); 
    }
    
    @Override
    public void onWindowFocusChanged(boolean hasFocus) {
        super.onWindowFocusChanged(hasFocus);
        if (hasFocus) {
            // Launch the IME after a bit
            mHandler.postDelayed(mShowInputMethodTask, 0);
        }
    }
    protected void showInputMethodForQuery() {
        InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager) getSystemService(INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
        if (imm != null) {
            imm.showSoftInput(nameText, 0);
         }
    }
}