Chapter 4
Using XML-Based Layouts
While it is technically possible to create and attach widgets to your activity purely through Java code, as we did in the preceding chapter, the more common approach is to use an XML-based layout file. Dynamic instantiation of widgets is reserved for more complicated scenarios, where the widgets are not known at compile time (e.g., populating a column of radio buttons based on data retrieved from the Internet).
With that in mind, it's time to break out the XML and learn how to lay out Android activities that way.
What Is an XML-Based Layout?
As the name suggests, an XML-based layout is a specification of widgets' relationships to each other—and to their containers (which are covered in Chapter 6)—encoded in ...
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