Can I increase a buttons onclick-area programmatically?

Question

Sometimes I have a button in my UI that it is so small that it is difficult to click. My solution so far has been to add a transparent border around the button in photoshop. Jus

Answer 1

Simply provide padding to the layout in place of Margin

    <ImageView
    android:id="@+id/back_btn"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:padding="25dip"
    android:src="@drawable/back_btn" />

Answer 2

This is a very late "me too," but after coming to this and other questions looking for a solution, I found a simple, elegant solution of my own.

Another question complained that the transparent background of their image was not clickable. If that is an issue, this seems to get around that as well.

Here's the button:

<ImageButton
    android:id="@+id/arrowUp"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:src="@drawable/arrow_up"
    android:background="@drawable/clear_button_background" />

The relevant lines are the last two. "@drawable/arrow_up" is a few button states in *.png files defined in a drawable *.xml file like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
 <item android:state_pressed="true"
       android:drawable="@drawable/tri_up_blue" /> <!-- pressed -->
 <item android:state_selected="true"
       android:drawable="@drawable/tri_up_blue" /> <!-- selected -->
 <item android:state_focused="true"
       android:drawable="@drawable/tri_up_blue" /> <!-- focused -->
 <item android:drawable="@drawable/tri_up_green" /> <!-- default -->
</selector>

Just your basic button. Nothing special. And "@drawable/clear_button_background" is just this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"  
    android:shape="rectangle">
   <solid android:color="@android:color/transparent"/>
   <size android:width="20dp" android:height="30dp" />
</shape>

The height and width here are the clickable area, resize as needed. You can reuse this for as many buttons as you need in a single view, unlike the absurdly detailed TouchDelegate. No additional listeners. It doesn't add any views or groups to your hierarchy and you won't be messing around with padding and margins all day.

Simple. Elegant.