Android: How does GridView auto_fit find the number of columns?

I would like to understand better how Gridview works, in particular auto_fit. Here is the XML layout:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<GridView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" 
    android:id="@+id/gridview"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:columnWidth="60dp"
    android:numColumns="auto_fit"
/>

And it works fine with a series of six thumbnails (48*48 pixels). In portrait mode, it displays one row, six columns.

What I don't understand is why the line android:columnWidth="60dp" is necessary, because auto_fit is expected to find the right number of columns.
Without the line android:columnWidth="60dp", it displays a grid 3 rows and 2 columns.

Here is the ImageAdapter class:

package com.examples.HelloGridView;

import android.content.Context;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;
import android.widget.BaseAdapter;
import android.widget.ImageView;

public class ImageAdapter extends BaseAdapter {
    private Context mContext;

    public ImageAdapter(Context c) {
        mContext = c;
    }

    public int getCount() {
        return mThumbIds.length;
    }

    public Object getItem(int position) {
        return null;
    }

    public long getItemId(int position) {
        return 0;
    }

    // create a new ImageView for each item referenced by the Adapter
    public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
        ImageView imageView;
        if (convertView == null) {  // if it's not recycled, initialize some attributes
            imageView = new ImageView(mContext);
            imageView.setPadding(0, 0, 0, 0);
        } else {
            imageView = (ImageView) convertView;
        }

        imageView.setImageResource(mThumbIds[position]);
        return imageView;
    }

    // references to our images
    private Integer[] mThumbIds = {
            R.drawable.ic_1, R.drawable.ic_2,
            R.drawable.ic_3, R.drawable.ic_4,
            R.drawable.ic_5, R.drawable.ic_6
    };
}

Thank you for your help.

Looking at the GridView source, it is clear that setting the padding and the height on your ImageView will not help you at all. When a column width is not specified, it just chooses a preset number of columns (2):

    private void determineColumns(int availableSpace) {

    ...
    
    if (mRequestedNumColumns == AUTO_FIT) {
        if (requestedColumnWidth > 0) {
            // Client told us to pick the number of columns
            mNumColumns = (availableSpace + requestedHorizontalSpacing) /
                    (requestedColumnWidth + requestedHorizontalSpacing);
        } else {
            // Just make up a number if we don't have enough info
            mNumColumns = 2;
        }
    } else {
        // We picked the columns
        mNumColumns = mRequestedNumColumns;
    }
    
    if (mNumColumns <= 0) {
        mNumColumns = 1;
    }
  
    ...

The solution is to measure your column size before setting the GridView's column width. Here is a quick way to measure Views offscreen:

public int measureCellWidth( Context context, View cell )
{
	
	// We need a fake parent
	FrameLayout buffer = new FrameLayout( context );
	android.widget.AbsListView.LayoutParams layoutParams = new  android.widget.AbsListView.LayoutParams(LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT);
	buffer.addView( cell, layoutParams);
	
	cell.forceLayout();
	cell.measure(1000, 1000);
				
	int width = cell.getMeasuredWidth();

    buffer.removeAllViews();
	
	return width;
}

And then you just set the GridView's column width:

gridView.setColumnWidth( width );

According to the android:numColumns documentation

>auto_fit Display as many columns as possible to fill the available space.

So if you insert ImageViews with

padding set to zero

margin set to zero

layout_width set to wrap_content

layout_height set to wrap_content

The gridView should contain the maximum possible number of children

---

Keep in mind Your ImageViews maybe are getting scaled (:

This may help someone... You need to find width size manually. Based on the width size you can set column

        float scalefactor = getResources().getDisplayMetrics().density * 100;
        int number = getWindowManager()
                .getDefaultDisplay().getWidth();
        int columns = (int) ((float) number / scalefactor) / 2;
        if (columns == 0 || columns == 1)
            columns = 2;
        gridView.setNumColumns(columns);

I find that I usually know how wide I want my columns to be. Either I know the size of my pictures or I let the user determine that size. Therefore i can just set the width in my Activity:

	gridview = (GridView) findViewById(R.id.gridview);
	SharedPreferences mySettings;
	mySettings = getSharedPreferences(Constants.PREFERENCES, Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
	int gridSize = 50 * Integer.parseInt(mySettings.getString("gridSize", "3"));
	gridview.setColumnWidth(gridSize + 10); 

Thats all . . .

Greetings from Lucerne, Stephan

"wrap_content" works like word wrap does for text editors - if the image cannot fit into the last column size, the image flows to the next row. However, if you set the numcolumns attribute to a number then the grid may stretch/adjust the columns (stretchModde is another property that you may want to use in conjunction).

ps - although you have ticked the answer, would be glad to know if this helped.