I'm getting the same advice from Erel in the "Different font sizes..." thread. Between the two of you (and a couple of hours of experimenting), it's starting to sink in about how to do layouts for 800x480x160 and x240.
I still have some related questions, though:
First:
While experimenting, I had started with an 800x480x160 layout and compiled it onto an 800x480x240 emulator and of course,
the print was too small. So I added a variant for the x240 (which I understand now should be done in a separate layout) and made the font bigger which, of course, caused the font to be too big on the x160 variant.
The unexpected result, however, was that when I compiled onto both an 800x480x160 and an x240 emulator,
they both had the too-large fonts, but when I checked the x240 variant in Designer, it showed the font fitting okay.
In other words, it appears that the x240 variant was not being used when compiling to the x240 emulator -- it was still using the x160 variant. I thought that if a layout was made with a variant with the same specs as a particular device/emulator, it would use that variant, but it didn't in this case.
Maybe it doesn't matter since I should be doing the x240 in a separate layout instead of in a variant, but I'm just curious why it didn't use it.
Second:
If you look at either of the above links, you'll see that the title bar and icon/notification bar at the top are so small that they are illegible, yet if you measure it (make sure you're not magnifying the page), you'll see that it is 3.7" diagonally, so it is the same size as an actual device.
Third:
Speaking of same size -- when starting up an emulator with AVD Manager, I enter the actual device size and my monitor's specs, which I thought was supposed to make the emulator the actual size, but it's way too small.
Example: to get a device that is actually 3.7" diagonally on the screen, I have to enter 4.75", and to get a 7" emulator, I have to enter 9".
Isn't the point of entering the actual device size that it is supposed to make the emulator that size on the screen, or not?