Android Tutorial Google Play: "Designed for tablet screens"

Informatix · Oct 27, 2013

A change is coming up on November 21 on Google Play. The applications considered by Google as not designed for tablets will be marked as designed for phones and, by default, won't appear for tablets (a setting will allow to switch to the former view, with all apps, but we can bet that most users won't change it). For B4A users, the minimum things to do to make an app "designed for tablet screens" are:
- set android:largeScreens to true in the Manifest editor (it is true by default);
- set targetSdkVersion to 11 or higher in the Manifest editor (it is set to 14 in new projects);
- add a folder \Objects\res\drawable-hdpi to your project and place the icon.png (minimum size 72x72) of your app inside;
- import at least two screenshots in the Tablet section (7" and 10") of the Google Play console.

Informatix · Nov 1, 2013

Harris said:
No, I looked for that first thing. Visible is false.

Maybe you could start a new thread for this issue...

Harris · Nov 1, 2013

Will do if I can't resolve it... Thx

Sasa · Nov 4, 2013

I have this message in Google Play: "Your layout should make use of the available space on tablets"

Informatix · Nov 4, 2013

Sasa said:
I have this message in Google Play: "Your layout should make use of the available space on tablets"

I have never got this error but I think it appears when the application is not in full screen.

Harris · Nov 4, 2013

Had an issue when publishing app... My Nexus 7 wasn't supported. Using the camera was the issue.
Had to add the following to the manifest:
<uses-featureandroid:name="android.hardware.camera"android:required="false"/>

These refers to the rear camera - which a Nexus 7 doesn't have.

All is fine now with Google Play.

Asmoro · Nov 10, 2013

@Informatix

My app is a tablet only game.

So this is partly my Manifest for 7", 8" and 10"inch tablet:

B4X:

<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="15" />
<supports-screens android:largeScreens="true"
                  android:xlargeScreens="true"
                  android:anyDensity="true"/>)

And my "\Objects\res\" contains hdpi/mdpi/xhdpi and xxhdpi icons.

Sufficient enough you think?

note. my biggest worry is that my layouts could be not perfectly fit, thanks to all different resolutions tablets have nowadays.

Informatix · Nov 10, 2013

Asmoro said:
@Informatix

My app is a tablet only game.

So this is partly my Manifest for 7", 8" and 10"inch tablet:

B4X:

<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="15" /> <supports-screens android:largeScreens="true" android:xlargeScreens="true" android:anyDensity="true"/>)

And my "\Objects\res\" contains hdpi/mdpi/xhdpi and xxhdpi icons.

Sufficient enough you think?

note. my biggest worry is that my layouts could be not perfectly fit, thanks to all different resolutions tablets have nowadays.

That looks good but to be sure upload your APK on Google Play in the dev console and you'll know.
You can post your beta version in the "Share your creations" section of this forum if you want people to test your app. So you'll know whether it has issues with some resolutions.

lemonisdead · Nov 14, 2013

Hello,

I was used to create the designs using the designer's scripts and the auto scale all. Now I get the warning about the layout not created for tablets.
Even a new test app created especially and including all the layouts variants provides the same warning after uploading the .apk

Of course I did check the manifest and the icons I include in the /res folder. The problem is still the same.

So my question is about any other fix or any idea to fix. Many thanks

Informatix · Nov 15, 2013

lemonisdead said:
Hello,

I was used to create the designs using the designer's scripts and the auto scale all. Now I get the warning about the layout not created for tablets.
Even a new test app created especially and including all the layouts variants provides the same warning after uploading the .apk

Of course I did check the manifest and the icons I include in the /res folder. The problem is still the same.

So my question is about any other fix or any idea to fix. Many thanks

The layout variants that you create with the designer are not considered by Google. They are specific to B4A.
Did you create the drawable-hdpi folder with the icon inside protected against writing?
Did you increase the version number before uploading the APK?

lemonisdead · Nov 15, 2013

Hello Informatix, thanks for the help. I am currently trying other solutions. I'll let you all know.

Yes I did create the drawable-hdpi (with icons in it) and made readable only. The version number was increased and even was a new version number for the test app published.

lemonisdead · Nov 15, 2013

SOLVED : I was not aware of the fact the orange warning icon and the title is the same but the problems reported and displayed when clicking on this icon are changing. In fact they write "optimize for the tablets" but they are many reasons I was faced to : the layout of course and now because the test app includes functionalities tablets won't support....

unba1300 · Feb 5, 2014

Hi. I just moved my read-only 96 x 96 icons to a \Objects\res\drawable-hdpi folder and placed 48 x 48 copies in the Files folder after scaling with Gimp. But I can tell my app is only using the icons from the Files folder on both my phone and 10" tablet. At least in the development environment. But I'm still not clear about which size icon we're supposed to select in the Designer when making a button a BitmapDrawable. I selected the 48 x 48 ones from the Files folder, thinking it would select the larger ones from the other folder on the tablet. Or is this something that only gets done by Google Play?

Informatix · Feb 6, 2014

unun4848 said:
Hi. I just moved my read-only 96 x 96 icons to a \Objects\res\drawable-hdpi folder and placed 48 x 48 copies in the Files folder after scaling with Gimp. But I can tell my app is only using the icons from the Files folder on both my phone and 10" tablet. At least in the development environment. But I'm still not clear about which size icon we're supposed to select in the Designer when making a button a BitmapDrawable. I selected the 48 x 48 ones from the Files folder, thinking it would select the larger ones from the other folder on the tablet. Or is this something that only gets done by Google Play?

Files in the Assets folder are different from resources in the Res folder. You access your files with the functions of the File class and the resources with the functions of the AndroidResources library or XmlLayoutBuilder library. And FYI, the expected size for the hdpi folder is 72x72. 96x96 is for the extra hdpi.

Wembly · Apr 28, 2014

I've done all the recommendations posted by Informatix but still get the following message in the dev console:

"Your Production APK needs to meet the following criteria:

Your layout should make use of the available space on 7-inch tablets"

My app uses the Phone library could this have an impact?

Erel · Apr 29, 2014

My app uses the Phone library could this have an impact?

No.

According to the answer here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17938163/designing-android-apps-for-tablets it seems like you need to make sure that your layout actually uses the available space (use Anchors for that).

Informatix · Apr 29, 2014

Erel said:
No.

According to the answer here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17938163/designing-android-apps-for-tablets it seems like you need to make sure that your layout actually uses the available space (use Anchors for that).

According to another thread where the guy solved the issue (in case where you still have this message whatever you do with your layouts), it is not related to the layouts or images of your app. Maybe it's because you use features (like camera or SMS) that are not supported by most tablets. See if you can fix this with the advices given in the forum for such a case (look at this post).

tdocs2 · Apr 29, 2014

Wembly said:
I've done all the recommendations posted by Informatix but still get the following message in the dev console:

"Your Production APK needs to meet the following criteria:
Your layout should make use of the available space on 7-inch tablets"

My app uses the Phone library could this have an impact?

I am certainly a novice compared to the ever growing group of dedicated and generous Well Known Members and Experts to whom I am extremely grateful.

I know it sounds unrelated to the space issue, but could you also try in the Manifest Editor:

AddManifestText(<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.telephony" android:required="false"/>)

Hope this helps.

Best regards to all.

DavideV · May 11, 2014

Just published my first app designed for tablets, so i want add my experience:
If you add advertisements it's possible that the related sdk adds to your app reference to specific hardware requirements not used by your app itself.
These hardware requirements reduce the number of target device. for example most cheap tablets doesn't have gps or , as in the post above, phone section.
After compile your app check the permission required and who require these permission.
Permission not required by yuor app functionality should be declared as false in manifest
as in the post above.
Here some screenshoot, may help to understand better...

As you can see leadbolt (Ads) requires a lot of permissions not used by my app.
The app itself uses webviewand phoneid only.
Leadbolt uses location (GPS) and this make the app not compatible with tablets.
Below how i set my manifest to solve this:

Hope this help

DavideV

danijel · May 27, 2014

Thank you @Informatix on this info:

- add a folder \Objects\res\drawable-hdpi to your project and place the icon.png (minimum size 72x72) of your app inside;

That was enough for my app to be "designed for tablet screens".
That was minimum requirements.
I am curious what is the best routine for include icon set.

Can I try like this:
\Objects\res\drawable\icon.png (48x48)
\Objects\res\drawable-hdpi\icon.png (72x72)
\Objects\res\drawable-xhdpi\icon.png (96x96)
\Objects\res\drawable-xxhdpi\icon.png (144x144)
\Objects\res\drawable-xxxhdpi\icon.png (192x192)
Will this work?
http://developer.android.com/design/style/iconography.html
Do I have to edit manifest after that.

And Is there similar way for background assets?
if I need for example:
wallpaper.png (1920x1080)
wallpaper.png (960x540)

Thank you

Erel · May 27, 2014

Will this work?

Yes. Make sure that the files are read-only.

You don't need to modify the manifest file.

And Is there similar way for background assets?

Not automatically.

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