I am updating an android app I have had out there a long time. (Not using Compose in it yet, want to.. 🙂 ).. Question is, I am running this app on a Pixel4XL and it was originally written a while ago. I have a screen where you use a slider to set a target amount and it’s too small. Just read a bunch of stuff and it seems like I literally have to make a duplicate layout for higher density phones? I guess that’s what I have to do? my other question is how is Compose going to handle this? Thanks.

basically not much more than

if (tooSmall(currentConfiguration)) {
  MySmallSliderAlternative(...)
} else {
  Slider(...)
}

It’s funny the other dev on this project was like ‘wait they don’t just automatically scale the components?’ hahaha um, no

Is this an issue with screen size or density? If your layout uses

dp

units it should be density-independent. Most composables also use

Dp

for dimensions as well. If it's a screen size issue, you don't necessarily need to duplicate the whole layout, you can just redefine the dimension resource values.

You can definitely write a layout that automatically adapts to different resolutions

yeah, i might have misunderstood the question. If there’s a component that has an intrinsic minimum size that is too big to fit on some screen, you might have to do a trick like the above. Other than that, all layouts in compose should be “responsive” by default and be able to change size depending on the size available to them. Hope that makes sense

Hey guys, I noticed a review where a user had said they could no longer use the slider to set a target amount. So I tried it on my Pixel4XL and it was indeed difficult to do. But it was possible. If Android autoscaled it, might be time to take a look at those defaults and how they impact haptic usability. I ended up making the thumbtack larger, which was not a terrible ordeal so I am happy now. While discussing it with the other dev on the project, she showed me an interface where targets are set by tapping within the dial, which I really liked, so I might end up implementing that in Compose.

i see, so what you’re saying is that the non-compose Slider seems to be hard to use on the Pixel4XL? and this is potentially because of autoscaling? When you say it was difficult to do, what was difficult? Were the tap targets just too small on a screen that size?

yes, that on larger phones, the default configuration ends up being too small a target for users, and I concurred after trying it on the P4XL

i see. yeah, i misunderstood your question entirely, sorry. that just sounds like a buggy implementation that should be fixed. I’m not sure if our slider suffers from the same problem, but if it does, feel free to file a bug!

@codeslubber Could you share your layout/setup?

@romainguy sure, it is in a

LinearLayout

code predates

ConstraintLayout

and I did think about porting the view to CL, one of the documents seemed to imply that you would get a better result in adapting to a larger screen, but if it’s just doing it based on pixel density not clear how that would be. @Leland Richardson [G] will for sure do that when I try it in compose!