Widget margins not applied on ICS phone with TouchWiz launcher?

Question

I have an app with a widget. I know that Android 4.0 or later will automatically create a margin around the widget so I\'ve implemented the suggestion on this developers API

Answer 1

As you already pointed out, the trick is to use different margins/padding for TouchWiz devices or SDK level < 14. For SDK level < 14 you should continue to use dimens.xml, but for TouchWiz you'll need to create a separate layout file. Then if you detect TouchWiz, you switch the layout file in the constructor of the widget RemoteViews:

RemoteViews views = new RemoteViews(
    context.getPackageName(), 
    isAlternativeMargins(context) ? 
        R.layout.alternative_layout : 
        R.layout.normal_layout
)

To detect TouchWiz and other launchers having the same problem, you could use the following code:

/* sorted alphabetically to be able to use Arrays.binarySearch later on */
private final static String[] LAUNCHER_ALTERNATIVES = {
    "com.sec.android.app.launcher",
    "com.sec.android.app.twlauncher",
};

private final static String[] LAUNCHER_ALTERNATIVE_EXCEPTIONS = {
    "GT-I9100", // Galaxy S II
    "GT-I9100G", // Galaxy S II
    "GT-I9100T", // Galaxy S II
    "GT-I9210T", // Galaxy S II
    "GT-I9100M", // Galaxy S II
    "SGH-I757M", // Galaxy S II
    "SGH-I727R", // Galaxy S II
    "SGH-I927", // Galaxy S II
    "SGH-T989D", // Galaxy S II
    "GT-I9108", // Galaxy S II
    "GT-I9100P", // Galaxy S II
    "ISW11SC", // Galaxy S II
    "SC-02C", // Galaxy S II
    "SHW-M250K", // Galaxy S II
    "SHW-M250L", // Galaxy S II
    "SHW-M250S", // Galaxy S II
    "SGH-I777", // Galaxy S II
    "SGH-I727", // Galaxy S II
    "SGH-I927", // Galaxy S II
    "SPH-D710", // Galaxy S II
    "SGH-T989", // Galaxy S II
    "SCH-R760", // Galaxy S II
    "GT-N7000", // Galaxy Note
    "SHV-E160K", // Galaxy Note
    "SHV-E160L", // Galaxy Note
    "SHV-E160S", // Galaxy Note
    "SGH-I717", // Galaxy Note
    "SC-05D", // Galaxy Note
    "SGH-T879", // Galaxy Note
    "GT-I9220", // Galaxy Note
    "GT-I9228", // Galaxy Note
    "SCH-I889", // Galaxy Note
    "SGH-I717", // Galaxy Note
};

static {
    Arrays.sort(LAUNCHER_ALTERNATIVE_EXCEPTIONS);
}


public static boolean isAlternativeMargins(Context context) {
    if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT < 14)
        return false;

    PackageManager pm = context.getPackageManager();
    Intent i = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_MAIN);
    i.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_HOME);
    i.addCategory(Intent.CATEGORY_DEFAULT);

    ResolveInfo info = pm.resolveActivity(i, PackageManager.MATCH_DEFAULT_ONLY);

    if (
            info != null && info.activityInfo != null && 
            info.activityInfo.taskAffinity != null
    ) {
        int pos = Arrays.binarySearch(
                LAUNCHER_ALTERNATIVES, info.activityInfo.taskAffinity
        );

        // if TouchWiz
        if (pos >= 0) {
            // if >= Android 4.1.2 and (Galaxy S II or Galaxy Note) 
            if ( getSdk() >= 16 && Arrays.binarySearch(
                    LAUNCHER_ALTERNATIVE_EXCEPTIONS, Build.MODEL
            ) >= 0)
                return false;

            return true;
        }
    }
    return false;
}

The code above detects the default launcher and returns true, if it is TouchWiz.

EDIT: Modified for additional launchers that seem to have the same problem as TouchWiz.

EDIT 2: Modified for Android 4.1.2 on Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note where the widget margins work as expected. In contrast on a Galaxy S 3 with Android 4.1.2, they don't work as expected which will probably change for future TouchWiz versions from Samsung.