Posts tagged Layout

This little tip will show you how to align your TabHost at the bottom of the screen in your Android app, like this:

I assume you know how to use the TabHost the usual way (I might write a tutorial on that later).

Say you are using your TabHost the following way:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<TabHost
	xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
	android:id="@android:id/tabhost"
	android:layout_width="fill_parent"
	android:layout_height="fill_parent">
	<LinearLayout
		android:orientation="vertical"
		android:layout_width="fill_parent"
		android:layout_height="fill_parent"
		android:padding="5dp">
		<TabWidget
			android:id="@android:id/tabs"
			android:layout_width="fill_parent"
			android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
		<FrameLayout
			android:id="@android:id/tabcontent"
			android:layout_width="fill_parent"
			android:layout_height="fill_parent"
			android:padding="5dp" />
	</LinearLayout>
</TabHost>

You then have the tabs on top, like this:

But if you switch out the LinearLayout with a RelativeLayout, like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<TabHost
	xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
	android:id="@android:id/tabhost"
	android:layout_width="fill_parent"
	android:layout_height="fill_parent">
	<RelativeLayout
		android:layout_height="fill_parent"
		android:layout_width="fill_parent">
		<TabWidget
			android:id="@android:id/tabs"
			android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
			android:layout_width="fill_parent"
			android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
		<FrameLayout
			android:id="@android:id/tabcontent"
			android:layout_width="fill_parent"
			android:layout_height="fill_parent"
			android:padding="5dp" />
	</RelativeLayout>
</TabHost>

Then you can specify the alignment of your TabWidget (on line 12), to align it at the bottom:

android:layout_alignParentBottom=”true”

And you get the result as seen in the first image!

Edit April 25:

As pointed out in the comments, there was an error in the layout.
Paul J. Ghosh made a comment on this, with working xml layout, which unfortunately got filtered out by the spam filter.

Thank you.