How to get screen dimensions as pixels in Android

Question

I created some custom elements, and I want to programmatically place them to the upper right corner (n pixels from the top edge and m pixels from the right edge). Therefore I need to get the screen width and screen height and then set position:

int px = screenWidth - m;
int py = screenHeight - n;

How do I get screenWidth and screenHeight in the main Activity?

Answer 1

If you want the display dimensions in pixels you can use getSize:

Display display = getWindowManager().getDefaultDisplay();
Point size = new Point();
display.getSize(size);
int width = size.x;
int height = size.y;

If you're not in an Activity you can get the default Display via WINDOW_SERVICE:

WindowManager wm = (WindowManager) context.getSystemService(Context.WINDOW_SERVICE);
Display display = wm.getDefaultDisplay();

If you are in a fragment and want to acomplish this just use Activity.WindowManager (in Xamarin.Android) or getActivity().getWindowManager() (in java).

Before getSize was introduced (in API level 13), you could use the getWidth and getHeight methods that are now deprecated:

Display display = getWindowManager().getDefaultDisplay(); 
int width = display.getWidth();  // deprecated
int height = display.getHeight();  // deprecated

For the use case you're describing however, a margin/padding in the layout seems more appropriate.

Another way is: DisplayMetrics

A structure describing general information about a display, such as its size, density, and font scaling. To access the DisplayMetrics members, initialize an object like this:

DisplayMetrics metrics = new DisplayMetrics();
getWindowManager().getDefaultDisplay().getMetrics(metrics);

We can use widthPixels to get information for:

"The absolute width of the display in pixels."

Example:

Log.d("ApplicationTagName", "Display width in px is " + metrics.widthPixels);

Api level 30 update

final WindowMetrics metrics = windowManager.getCurrentWindowMetrics();
 // Gets all excluding insets
 final WindowInsets windowInsets = metrics.getWindowInsets();
 Insets insets = windowInsets.getInsetsIgnoreVisibility(WindowInsets.Type.navigationBars()
         | WindowInsets.Type.displayCutout());

 int insetsWidth = insets.right + insets.left;
 int insetsHeight = insets.top + insets.bottom;

 // Legacy size that Display#getSize reports
 final Rect bounds = metrics.getBounds();
 final Size legacySize = new Size(bounds.width() - insetsWidth,
         bounds.height() - insetsHeight);