Delveloping for Android high res screens, but supporting low res screens.

Question

I've been developing Android games for the lower res screens (320x480) and then letting Android handle the density adjustments so the games work on high res screens. It allows me to keep the size of my APK files small and I don't have to create multiple versions of every image in my games. It actually works fine, the games still look nice on higher res screens.

However, my question is, is it possible to do the same thing, only backwards? Can I develop for high res screens (800x480) and then somehow let android handle the density reductions automatically?

Answer 1

Yes.

In your xml layouts, use dip values for sizes.

Example:

100dip = 75 @ 120dpi 100 @ 160dpi 150 @ 240dpi

if you need a higher res resource for certain drawables, use the... drawable-hdpi drawable-mdpi drawable-ldpi

The app will use the drawable from the correct resource folder depending on the screen's density.

Try not to use absolute widths and heights on certain elements if you can use FILL_PARENT or WRAP_CONTENT.

Here's some good tips: http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/screens_support.html

Answer 2

Yes, and it works the same. You put your resources in the appropriate directory and the system will downscale them accordingly.