Normalized screen size in Android

Question

In one of my Activities I'd like to adjust an amount of textual content according to current screen size. What metric should I rely on?

Just width in pixels seems not too reliable since font scaling can be very different. On the other hand DisplayMetrics's DENSITY_280, DENSITY_400 ... seem too broad. Is there any normalized metric available like width_in_pixels * font_scaling?

Just in case: My min SDK verion is 15 (4.0.3)

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:28

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When specifying text size, always use sp:

<TextView android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:textSize="20sp" />

more details here and here

edited May 23 '17 at 12:28

Community

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answered Apr 17 '15 at 17:04

hornet2319

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João Marcos · Answer 2 · 2015-04-17T17:01:10.280

You can check this link to know how to Supporting Multiple Screens on Android.

The secret is using dp units on your layouts.

px is one pixel.
sp is scale-independent pixels.
dp is Density-independent pixels.

dp - Density-independent Pixels - an abstract unit that is based on the physical density of the screen. These units are relative to a 160 dpi screen, so one dp is one pixel on a 160 dpi screen. The ratio of dp-to-pixel will change with the screen density, but not necessarily in direct proportion. Note: The compiler accepts both "dip" and "dp", though "dp" is more consistent with "sp".

I change my anwser. please see it. – João Marcos Apr 17 '15 at 17:01 — João Marcos, Apr 17 '15 at 17:01

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 17 '15 at 17:03

1

you can get values like dpi from DisblayMetrics , look here docs

also, there is a built-in converter for different size metrics in api, TypedValue.applyDimension() , which can be used to get pixels from sp or dp

answered Apr 17 '15 at 17:03

Raiv

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Normalized screen size in Android

3 Answers3