Placing a textview on top of imageview in android

Question

• I have a listview, that has a single imageview which is scrollable vertically
• I am trying to place a textview on top of Imageview
• Both the views must be visible

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1. Is it possible ?
2. If yes, How to do it programmatically ?
3. What changes should i need to make ?

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list_view_item_for_images.xml

<?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="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent" >

    <ImageView
        android:id="@+id/flag"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="250dp"
        android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
        android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
        android:scaleType="fitXY"
        android:src="@drawable/ic_launcher" />

</RelativeLayout>

It gives a output like below

How to do something like below

note :: Dish 1 & 2 are textviews

Answer 1

This should give you the required layout:

<?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="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent" >

    <ImageView
        android:id="@+id/flag"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="250dp"
        android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
        android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
        android:scaleType="fitXY"
        android:src="@drawable/ic_launcher" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/textview"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
        android:layout_marginTop="20dp"
        android:layout_centerHorizontal="true" />

</RelativeLayout>

Play with the android:layout_marginTop="20dp" to see which one suits you better. Use the id textview to dynamically set the android:text value.

Since a RelativeLayout stacks its children, defining the TextView after ImageView puts it 'over' the ImageView.

NOTE: Similar results can be obtained using a FrameLayout as the parent, along with the efficiency gain over using any other android container. Thanks to Igor Ganapolsky(see comment below) for pointing out that this answer needs an update.