android layout support for all screen sizes with support to pre lollipop and above lollipop devices

Question

This is my first android app, I am stuck on how to group layouts for small, medium and large screen sizes and also how to support pre lollipop devices and above lollipop devices?

layout-small

layout-small-v21

layout-normal

layout-normal-v21

layout-large

layout-large-v21

whether the directory names listed above are correct? or else can someone tell me how to achieve this?

Answer 1

To give the support to all screen sizes using different layout folders you have to follow these folders structure.

res/layout/my_layout.xml             // layout for normal screen size ("default")
res/layout-small/my_layout.xml       // layout for small screen size
res/layout-large/my_layout.xml       // layout for large screen size
res/layout-xlarge/my_layout.xml      // layout for extra large screen size
res/layout-xlarge-land/my_layout.xml // layout for extra large in landscape orientation

And to give respective support enable in manifest.xml

<supports-screens android:smallScreens="true" 
      android:normalScreens="true" 
      android:largeScreens="true"
      android:xlargeScreens="true"
      android:anyDensity="true" />

And for images respective to all screen resolutions use drawable folder structure:

res/drawable-mdpi/ic_launcher.png        // bitmap for medium density
 res/drawable-hdpi/ic_launcher.png        // bitmap for high density
 res/drawable-xhdpi/ic_launcher.png       // bitmap for extra high density

To give a support to before and after lollipop api. You have to decide minimum api level and max api level for app support.

Suppose for your app you want: Min. api level = 15 and Max. api level = 23

In Eclipse IDE: In Manifest.xml add

<uses-sdk
        android:minSdkVersion="15"
        android:maxSdkVersion="23"
        android:targetSdkVersion="23" />

In AndroidStudio IDE: In build.gradle add

defaultConfig {
        ...
        minSdkVersion 15
        maxSdkVersion 23
        targetSdkVersion 23
        versionCode 1
        versionName "1.0"
        ....
    }