Make your Android App support all 3 screen sizes in 3 easy steps!
If you just want your app to work with minimal effort and minimal time you can let the OS handle your layouts for you.
It may not be the most optimized view on all 3 screen sizes but in my experience it's enough to get the app to work effectively until you can go back and pretty it up.
Step 1 - Set your app to compile with android 1.6
To do this in eclipse right click on your project in the Package Explorer and select properties.
Click on Android on the left pane. and then check the Android 1.6 check box.
Step 2 - Make sure your app will still run on phones running Cupcake(Android 1.5)
Add the following to your manifest...
<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="3" android:targetSdkVersion="4"/>
The minsdkversion attribute set to 3 specifies that your app is compatible with devices with firmware 1.5 and will allow those devices to see your app in the market.
Step 3 - Make the OS handle the display
Add this to your manifest....
<supports-screens
android:smallScreens="true"
android:largeScreens="false"
android:anyDensity="false">
</supports-screens>
Setting largeScreens="false" tells the platform to manage the screen and in my experience apps display just fine.
If they don’t fit the screen white space is added but at least the ui is not distorted.
Setting anyDensity="false" tells the platform to manage the UI itself.
When I had this set to true the UI was all shrunken up and looked like ASS on the big screens and on the small screen it was blown up and distorted and partially looked like ASS.
That’s it! All done!
That should get your apps working on all three screen sizes while still working on devices with 1.5 installed.