Android API – Dividers?

During day to day development you easily forget some neat little features that might have slipped through your mind. This time we are diving into a feature of the LinearLayout.

Imagine a simple horizontal LinearLayout, wherein 3 squares are shown:

The requirement is to show a divider between the squares, like so:

How would you tackle this?

You might create divider views inside the LinearLayout like below.

<LinearLayout
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:orientation="horizontal">

    <View />

    <include layout="@layout/divider" />

    <View />

    <include layout="@layout/divider" />

    <View />
</LinearLayout>

This will work for sure, but the LinearLayout possesses the same feature. Let me introduce you to android:divider

<LinearLayout
 android:layout_width="match_parent"
 android:layout_height="wrap_content"
 android:orientation="horizontal"
 android:divider="@drawable/divider"
 android:dividerPadding="15dp"
 android:showDividers="beginning|middle|end">

 <View />
 <View />
 <View />
</LinearLayout>

There are three settings you can play with.

android:showDividers

This can be beginning, end, middle or none.

By default this value is set to none, so remember to set a value. You can combine the values by adding a pipe.

android:divider

This tag decides how the divider is going to look like. Here you can add a color or drawable.

android:dividerPadding

Set the padding size used to inset dividers.

The video below will showcase multiple cases. You can find the code here.