Android TableLayout: preserve column widths between different tables

Question

I have two TableLayouts, one above the other, in my View. I want them to act as a single table for the purpose of calculating column widths, but appear separately with a gap between them (and the main View background showing through) for aesthetic reasons.

Each table has 3 columns, and I want the column widths sized automatically depending on content, but I just want the columns to line up nicely with the same widths in both tables.

At the moment my tables look like this:

+---------------------------+
|      |                |   |
|      |                |   |
+---------------------------+

+---------------------------+
|          |            |   |
|          |            |   |
|          |            |   |
|          |            |   |
+---------------------------+

But I want them to look like this:

+---------------------------+
|         |             |   |
|         |             |   |
+---------------------------+

+---------------------------+
|         |             |   |
|         |             |   |
|         |             |   |
|         |             |   |
+---------------------------+

The only way I can see of getting what I want is to apply a fixed width to the columns in questions, but that defeats the point of having the TableLayout calculate the widths for me.

Is it at all possible?

Answer 1

You should seriously consider cheating. Stick in a table row that looks identical to your background, and nobody will know that it isn't two tables with a gap between them. You may have to do some fiddling with borders, but I suspect that it's not only possible, but easier than linking two independent table objects.