Set the padding/margin to the top activity/fragment layout container in theme?

Question

In my app I wanted to apply padding to all my screen top level container from the theme.

example :

here is the layout file.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    tools:context=".MainActivity">

    <EditText
        android:id="@+id/edt"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

</RelativeLayout>

here is the app theme.

<!-- Base application theme. -->
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light">
        <!-- Customize your theme here. -->
        <item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
        <item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
        <item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
        <item name="android:windowFrame">@drawable/window_frame</item>
    </style>

I can apply padding using android:padding to the parent container RelativeLayout. But I don't want like this as I need to specify the same in each layout file, I wanted to define that in theme - AppTheme.

Any solution will be appreciated.

Answer 1

why you need to code extra using style?

You can set padding directly inside res/values/dimens.xml,it would be much easier. and whenever you need to increase or decrease the values you just need to change at single place for every activity

e.g. in dimens.xml

<dimen name="my_activity_padding">5dp</dimen> 

and then in activity layout:

android:padding="@dimen/activity_padding"

Answer 2

The theme is not the solution since it will add padding to all view hierarchy under your layout. (your RelativeLayout as well as the EditText.

Use @Karan solution