Translating Xamarin Forms Grid Layout to Xamarin Android

Question

Suppose I have the following grid in a .XAML file in a Xamarin Forms project:

<Grid ColumnSpacing="12">
    <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
        <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" />
        <ColumnDefinition Width="Auto" />
        <ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
        <ColumnDefinition Width="*" />
    </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
    <Grid.RowDefinitions>
        <RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
        <RowDefinition Height="Auto" />
        <RowDefinition Height="*" />
    </Grid.RowDefinitions>
</Grid>

How would I translate this XAML markup to Android XML? I have read the documentation for both the GridLayout and TableLayout views but I am not sure I completely understand the difference between them and, as such, not sure which one is the most appropriate for this scenario.

Also, I have a hard requirement that I must target Android API level 19. I mention this because it seems like there were items in the aforementioned documentation that indicated certain features were added in API level 21 or 22.

Answer 1

TableLayout extend LinearLayout ,there is no need to specify how many rows or columns the declaration contains,control the number of rows and columns in the table by adding TableRow /other components,it can't span rows and columns. It's not flexible

GridLayout added after Android 4.0,it can divide the entire container into grids for rows*columns,can set how many columns or rows a component spans

so GridLayout is better to use.

as you xaml have no content,if you use gridlayou ,you could write like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<GridLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="match_parent"
  android:rowCount="3"
  android:columnCount="4"
  android:id="@+id/root">

  //content components
  ...
</GridLayout>

and leftmargin , rightMargin and other properties of item can be used to set the horizontal and vertical spacing of item