How can I force a GridView to use the whole screen (regardless of display size)?

Question

I've got the following layout file, which has a GridView and an ImageView behind that as the background.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<FrameLayout
        xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="fill_parent"
        android:background="#FFFFFF">
    <ImageView
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_gravity="bottom|right"
            android:layout_marginRight="-70dp"
            android:layout_marginBottom="-50dp"
            android:src="@drawable/s_background"/>
    <LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
                  android:layout_width="fill_parent"
                  android:layout_height="fill_parent">
        <GridView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
                  android:id="@+id/gridview"
                  android:layout_width="match_parent"
                  android:layout_height="match_parent"
                  android:columnWidth="90dp"
                  android:numColumns="auto_fit"
                  android:verticalSpacing="10dp"
                  android:horizontalSpacing="10dp"
                  android:stretchMode="columnWidth"
                  android:gravity="center"/>
    </LinearLayout>
</FrameLayout>

And this is the layout I use for the actual item in each "cell" of the grid :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
              android:layout_width="match_parent"
              android:layout_height="match_parent">
    <TextView
            android:id="@+id/cardInGrid"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="match_parent"
            android:gravity="center"
            android:singleLine="true"
            android:textSize="40sp"
            android:textColor="#660099"
            android:typeface="serif"/>
</LinearLayout>

I'm seeing the following on my device at the moment :

Is there any way of making each item in the GridView larger, so it fits the size of the screen and I don't have un-used white space at the bottom of the display?

This works fine on an emulator, but on a device the screen resolution is higher, hence getting the white space at the bottom.

Many thanks

Answer 1

Not automatically.

In particular, your cells are text. Android is not exactly in position to guess how big the text should be to accomplish your aims, particularly once you take word-wrap into account.

The point of GridView is to have "un-used white space at the bottom of the display", if you do not have enough data to fill the screen, so that it can flexibly handle multiple screen sizes and also accommodate scrolling if there is more data. If you are aiming for something akin to the dashboard pattern, consider using DashboardLayout or something along those lines.