Introduction

With the advent of foldables and the resurgence of Android tablets, building responsive UIs that adapt to screen size changes is key.

Scenarios exist where you want to structure your UI such that the elements rearrange themselves and adapt to screen size changes or ensure they’re laid out based on the available space. Jetpack Compose’s Flow Layout construct helps in cases like these.

Flow layouts let you arrange child elements to wrap to the next line or column when there isn’t enough space to fit them in the current line or column. This layout behavior is particularly useful when the number or size of elements is dynamic and can’t be determined beforehand.

They offer several benefits, namely:

• Dynamic content arrangement: They adjust the arrangement of child elements based on the available space. This is useful for item lists that can grow or shrink, such as tags.
• Flexibility: They offer flexibility in arranging elements without requiring explicit positioning or fixed sizes. This makes it easier to handle various screen resolutions and densities.
• Built-in responsiveness: Flow layouts come with built-in responsiveness. Elements can wrap to new lines as the screen size changes, ensuring the layout adapts to different device sizes and orientations.

In this lesson, you’ll:

• Identify the purpose of a Flow Layout.
• Learn to create a Flow Layout.
• Learn the use of fractional sizing with Flow Layouts.