What is android:weightSum in android, and how does it work?

Question

I want to know: What is android:weightSum and layout weight, and how do they work?

Answer 1

The documentation says it best and includes an example, (highlighting mine).

android:weightSum

Defines the maximum weight sum. If unspecified, the sum is computed by adding the layout_weight of all of the children. This can be used for instance to give a single child 50% of the total available space by giving it a layout_weight of 0.5 and setting the weightSum to 1.0.

So to correct superM's example, suppose you have a LinearLayout with horizontal orientation that contains two ImageViews and a TextView with. You define the TextView to have a fixed size, and you'd like the two ImageViews to take up the remaining space equally.

To accomplish this, you would apply layout_weight 1 to each ImageView, none on the TextView, and a weightSum of 2.0 on the LinearLayout.