Merge "Update Widget Design guidelines for ICS"

docs/html/guide/guide_toc.cs

@@ -717,7 +717,7 @@
             </ul>
           </li>
           <li><a href="<?cs var:toroot ?>guide/practices/ui_guidelines/widget_design.html">
-                <span class="en">App Widget Design</span>
+                <span class="en">App Widget Design <span class="new">updated</span></span>
               </a></li>
           <li><a href="<?cs var:toroot ?>guide/practices/ui_guidelines/activity_task_design.html">
                 <span class="en">Activity and Task Design</span>

docs/html/guide/practices/ui_guidelines/widget_design.jd

@@ -9,268 +9,322 @@ parent.link=index.html
 <h2>Quickview</h2>
 
 <ul>
-<li>Widgets have six standard sizes on the Home screen</li>
-<li>Widgets have standards for size, frames, shadows, and file format, which you can copy</li>
-<li>A few tricks make it easier to design widgets that fit graphically on the Home screen</li>
+  <li>App Widget layouts should be flexible, resizing to fit their parent container</li>
+  <li>As of Android 3.0, app widgets can depict collections of items and provide a representative
+    preview image for the widget gallery</li>
+  <li>As of Android 3.1, app widgets can be resizable horizontally and/or vertically</li>
+  <li>As of Android 4.0, app widgets have margins automatically applied</li>
 </ul>
 
 <h2>In this document</h2>
 
 <ol>
-<li><a href="#anatomy">Standard widget anatomy</a></li>
-<li><a href="#design">Designing a widget</a></li>
-<li><a href="#sizes">Standard widget sizes</a></li>
-<li><a href="#frames">Standard widget frames</a></li>
-<li><a href="#shadows">Standard widget shadows</a></li>
-<li><a href="#tricks">Widget graphics tips and tricks</a></li>
-<li><a href="#file">Widget graphics file format</a></li>
+<li><a href="#anatomy">Standard Widget Anatomy</a></li>
+<li><a href="#design">Designing Widget Layouts and Background Graphics</a></li>
+<li><a href="#templates">Using the App Widget Templates Pack</a></li>
+</ol>
+
+<h2>Downloads</h2>
+
+<ol>
+<li><a href="{@docRoot}shareables/app_widget_templates-v4.0.zip">App Widget Templates Pack,
+  v4.0 &raquo;</a></li>
 </ol>
 
 <h2>See also</h2>
 
 <ol>
 <li><a href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/appwidgets/index.html">App Widgets</a></li>
-<li><a href="http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2009/04/introducing-home-screen-widgets-and.html">AppWidgets blog post</a></li>
+<li>
+  <a href="http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2009/04/introducing-home-screen-widgets-and.html">
+    AppWidgets blog post</a></li>
 </ol>
 
 </div>
 </div>
 
 
-<p>Widgets are a feature introduced in Android 1.5. A widget displays an
-application's most important or timely information at a glance, on a user's Home
-screen. The standard Android system image includes several examples of widgets,
-including widgets for Analog Clock, Music, and other applications.</p>
+<p>App widgets (sometimes just "widgets") are a feature introduced in Android 1.5 and vastly
+improved in Android 3.0 and 3.1. A widget can display an application's most timely or otherwise
+relevant information at a glance, on a user's Home screen. The standard Android system image
+includes several widgets, including a widget for the Analog Clock, Music, and other
+applications.</p>
 
-<p>Users pick the widgets they want to display on their Home screens by touching
-&amp; holding an empty area of the Home screen, selecting Widgets from the menu,
-and then selecting the widget they want.</p>
 
-<p><img src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/widget_examples.png" alt="Example
-Widgets"></p>
+<img src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/widget_examples.png"
+  alt="Example app widgets in Android 4.0" id="widget_examples">
 
-<p>This document describes how to design a widget so it fits graphically with
-other widgets and with the other elements of the Android Home screen. It also
-describes some standards for widget artwork and some widget graphics tips and
-tricks from the Android team.<p>
+<p class="img-caption"><strong>Figure 1.</strong> Example app widgets in Android 4.0.</p>
+
+
+<p>This document describes how to design a widget so that it fits graphically with other widgets and
+with the other elements of the Android Home screen such as launcher icons and shortcuts. It also
+describes some standards for widget artwork and some widget graphics tips and tricks.<p>
 
 <p>For information about developing widgets, see the <a
-href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/appwidgets/index.html">AppWidgets</a> section of
-the <em>Developer's Guide</em> and the <a
-href="http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2009/04/introducing-home-screen-widgets-and.html">AppWidgets</a> blog post.</p>
+href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/appwidgets/index.html">App Widgets</a> section of the <em>Developer's
+Guide</em>.</p>
 
 
-<h2 id="anatomy">Standard widget anatomy</h2>
+<h2 id="anatomy">Standard Widget Anatomy</h2>
 
-<p>Typical Android widgets have three main components: A bounding box, a frame,
-and the widget's graphical controls and other elements. Well-designed widgets
-leave some padding between the edges of the bounding box and the frame, and
-between the inner edges of the frame and the widget's controls. Widgets designed
-to fit visually with other widgets on the Home screen take cues from the other
-elements on the Home screen for alignment; they also use standard shading
-effects. All of these details are described in this document.
-
-<p><strong>Standard Widget Sizes in Portrait Orientation</strong><br/>
-<img src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/widget_sizes_portrait.png"
-alt="Standard Widget Sizes in Portrait Orientation"></p>
-
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-
-<p><strong>Standard Widget Sizes in Landscape Orientation</strong><br/>
-<img src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/widget_sizes_landscape.png"
-alt="Standard Widget Sizes in Landscape Orientation"></p>
-
-  
-<h2 id="design">Designing a widget</h2>
-
-<ol>
-<li><strong>Select a bounding box size for your widget.</strong></li>
-
-<p>The most effective widgets display your application's most useful or timely
-data in the smallest widget size. Users will weigh the usefulness or your widget
-against the portion of the Home screen it covers, so the smaller the better.</p>
-
-<p>All widgets must fit within the bounding box of one of the six supported
-widget sizes, or better yet, within a pair of portrait and landscape orientation
-sizes, so your widget looks good when the user switches screen
-orientations.</p> 
-
-<p><a href="#sizes">Standard widget sizes</a> illustrates the bounding
-dimensions of the six widget sizes (three in portrait and three in landscape
-orientation).</p>
+<p>Typical Android app widgets have three main components: A bounding box, a frame, and the widget's
+graphical controls and other elements. App widgets can contain a subset of the View widgets in
+Android; supported controls include text labels, buttons, and images. For a full list of available
+Views, see the <a href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/appwidgets/index.html#CreatingLayout">Creating the
+App Widget Layout</a> section in the <em>Developer's Guide</em>. Well-designed widgets leave some
+margins between the edges of the bounding box and the frame, and padding between the inner edges of
+the frame and the widget's controls.</p>
 
 
-<li><strong>Select a matching frame.</strong></li>
+<img src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/widget_terms.png"
+  alt="Widgets generally have margins and padding between bounding box, frame, and controls"
+  id="widget_terms">
 
-<p><a href="#frames">Standard widget frames</a> illustrates the standard frames
-for the six widget sizes, with links so you can download copies for your own
-use. You don't have to use these frames for your widget, but if you do, your
-widgets are more likely to fit visually with other widgets.</p>
-
-<li><strong>Apply standard shadow effect to your graphics.</strong></li>
-
-<p>Again, you don't have to use this effect, but <a href="#shadows">Standard
-widget shadows</a> shows the Photoshop settings used for standard widgets.</p>
-
-<li><strong>If your widget includes buttons,  draw them in three states
-(default, pressed, and selected).</strong></li>
-
-<p>You can <a
-href="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/Music_widget_button_states.psd">download a
-Photoshop file that contains the three states of the Play button</a>, taken from
-the Music widget, to analyze the Photoshop settings used for the three standard
-button effects.</p>
-
-<p><a href="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/Music_widget_button_states.psd"> <img
-src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/buttons.png" alt="Click to download
-Photoshop template"></a></p>
- 
-<li><strong>Finish drawing your artwork and then scale and align it to
-fit.</strong></li>
-
-<p><a href="#tricks">Widget alignment tips and tricks</a> describes some
-techniques for aligning your widget's graphics inside the standard frames, along
-with a few other widget graphics tricks.</p>
-
-<li><strong>Save your widget with the correct graphics file
-settings.</strong></li>
-
-<p><a href="#file">Windows graphics file format</a> describes the correct
-settings for your widget graphics files.</p>
-
-</ol>
+<p class="img-caption"><strong>Figure 2.</strong> Widgets generally have margins between the
+bounding box and frame, and padding between the frame and widget controls.</p>
 
 
-<h2 id="sizes">Standard widget sizes</h2>
+<p class="note"><strong>Note: </strong> As of Android 4.0, app widgets are automatically given
+margins between the widget frame and the app widget's bounding box to provide better alignment with
+other widgets and icons on the user's home screen. To take advantage of this strongly recommended
+behavior, set your application's <a
+href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/manifest/uses-sdk-element.html">targetSdkVersion</a> to 14 or
+greater.</p>
 
-<p>There are six standard widget sizes, based on a Home screen grid of 4 x 4
-(portrait) or 4 x 4 (landscape) cells. These dimensions are the bounding boxes
-for the six standard widget sizes. The contents of typical widgets don't draw to
-the edge of these dimensions, but fit inside a frame withing the bounding box,
-as described in <a href="#design">Designing a widget</a>.</p>
+<p>Widgets designed to fit visually with other widgets on the Home screen take cues from the other
+elements on the Home screen for alignment; they also use standard shading effects. All of these
+details are described in this document.</p>
 
-<p>In portrait orientation, each cell is 80 pixels wide by 100 pixels tall (the
-diagram shows a cell in portrait orientation). The three supported widget sizes
-in portrait orientation are:<p>
 
-<table>
-<tr><th>Cells</th><th>Pixels</th></tr>
-<tr><td>4 x 1</td><td>320 x 100</td></tr>
-<tr><td>3 x 3</td><td>240 x 300</td></tr>
-<tr><td>2 x 2</td><td>160 x 200</td></tr>
+<h3 id="anatomy_determining_size">Determining a size for your widget</h3>
+
+<p>Each widget must define a <code>minWidth</code> and <code>minHeight</code>, indicating the
+minimum amount of space it should consume by default. When users add a widget to their Home screen,
+it will generally occupy more than the minimum width and height you specify. Android Home screens
+offer users a grid of available spaces into which they can place widgets and icons. This grid can
+vary by device; for example, many handsets offer a 4x4 grid, and tablets can offer a larger, 8x7
+grid. <strong>When your widget is added, it will be stretched to occupy the minimum number of cells,
+horizontally and vertically, required to satisfy its <code>minWidth</code> and
+<code>minHeight</code> constraints.</strong> As we discuss in <a href="#design">Designing Widget
+Layouts and Background Graphics</a> below, using nine-patch backgrounds and flexible layouts for app
+widgets will allow your widget to gracefully adapt to the device's Home screen grid and remain
+usable and aesthetically awesome.</p>
+
+<p>While the width and height of a cell&mdash;as well as the amount of automatic margins applied to
+widgets&mdash;may vary across devices, you can use the table below to roughly estimate your widget's
+minimum dimensions, given the desired number of occupied grid cells:</p>
+
+<table id="cellstable">
+  <thead>
+    <tr>
+      <th># of Cells<br><small style="font-weight:normal">(Columns or Rows)</small></th>
+      <th>Available Size (dp)<br><small style="font-weight:normal">(<code>minWidth</code> or
+        <code>minHeight</code>)</small></th>
+    </tr>
+  </thead>
+  <tbody>
+    <tr>
+      <td>1</td>
+      <td>40dp</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>2</td>
+      <td>110dp</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>3</td>
+      <td>180dp</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>4</td>
+      <td>250dp</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td>&hellip;</td>
+      <td>&hellip;</td>
+    </tr>
+    <tr>
+      <td><em>n</em></td>
+      <td>70 &times; <em>n</em> &minus; 30</td>
+    </tr>
+  </tbody>
 </table>
 
-<p><img src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/portrait_sizes.png" alt="Widget
-dimensions in portrait orientation"></p>
-
-<p>In landscape orientation, each cell is 106 pixels wide by 74 pixels tall. The
-three supported widget sizes in landscape orientation are:</p>
-
-<table>
-<tr><th>Cells</th><th>Pixels</th></tr>
-<tr><td>4 x 1</td><td>424 x 74</td></tr>
-<tr><td>3 x 3</td><td>318 x 222</td></tr>
-<tr><td>2 x 2</td><td>212 x 148</td></tr>
-</table>
-
-<p><img src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/landscape_sizes.png" alt="Widget
-dimensions in landscape orientation"></p>
+<p>It is a good practice to be conservative with <code>minWidth</code> and <code>minHeight</code>,
+specifying the minimum size that renders the widget in a good default state. For an example of how
+to provide a <code>minWidth</code> and <code>minHeight</code>, suppose you have a music player
+widget that shows the currently playing song artist and title (vertically stacked), a
+<strong>Play</strong> button, and a <strong>Next</strong> button:</p>
 
 
-<h2 id="frames">Standard widget frames</h2>
+<img src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/music_example.png"
+  alt="An example music player widget" id="music_example">
 
-<p>For each of the six standard widget sizes there is a standard frame. You can
-click the images of the frames in this section to download a Photoshop file for
-that frame, which you can use for your own widgets.<p>
-
-<p><a href="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/4x1_Widget_Frame_Portrait.psd"> <img
-src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/4x1_Widget_Frame_Portrait.png" alt="Click to
-download"></a><br>4x1_Widget_Frame_Portrait.psd</p>
-
-<p><a href="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/3x3_Widget_Frame_Portrait.psd"> <img
-src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/3x3_Widget_Frame_Portrait.png" alt="Click to
-download"></a><br>3x3_Widget_Frame_Portrait.psd</p>
-
-<p><a href="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/2x2_Widget_Frame_Portrait.psd"> <img
-src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/2x2_Widget_Frame_Portrait.png" alt="Click to
-download"></a><br>2x2_Widget_Frame_Portrait.psd</p>
-
-<p><a href="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/4x1_Widget_Frame_Landscape.psd"> <img
-src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/4x1_Widget_Frame_Landscape.png" alt="Click
-to download"></a><br>4x1_Widget_Frame_Landscape.psd</p>
-
-<p><a href="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/3x3_Widget_Frame_Landscape.psd"> <img
-src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/3x3_Widget_Frame_Landscape.png" alt="Click
-to download"></a><br>3x3_Widget_Frame_Landscape.psd</p>
-
-<p><a href="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/2x2_Widget_Frame_Landscape.psd"> <img
-src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/2x2_Widget_Frame_Landscape.png" alt="Click
-to download"></a><br>2x2_Widget_Frame_Landscape.psd</p>
+<p class="img-caption"><strong>Figure 3.</strong> An example music player widget.</p>
 
 
-<h2 id="shadows">Standard widget shadows</h2>
-
-<p>You can apply a shadow effect to your widget's artwork, so it matches other
-standard Android widgets, using the following settings in the Photoshop Layer
-Style dialog box.</p>
-
-<p><img src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/Layer_Style.png" alt="Layer Style
-settings for standard shadows"></p>
+<p>Your minimum height should be the height of your two TextViews for the artist and title, plus
+some text margins. Your minimum width should be the minimum usable widths of the
+<strong>Play</strong> and <strong>Next</strong> buttons, plus the minimum text width (say, the width
+of 10 characters), plus any horizontal text margins.</p>
 
 
-<h2 id="tricks">Widget graphics tips and tricks</h2>
+<img src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/music_example_redline.png"
+alt="Example sizes and margins for minimum width/height calculations" id="music_example_redline">
 
-<p>The Android team has developed a few tricks for aligning widget artwork
-within standard widget bounding boxes and frames, so the widget aligns visually
-with other widgets and the other elements of the Home screen, as well as other
-techniques for creating widgets.
+<p class="img-caption"><strong>Figure 4.</strong> Example sizes and margins for
+<code>minWidth</code>/<code>minHeight</code> calculations. We chose 144dp as an example good minimum
+width for the text labels.</p>
+
+
+<p>Example calculations are below:</p>
 
 <ul>
-
-<li>Use a screen shot from the Android SDK emulator to align both the shapes and
-shadows of your widget controls with the Search widget and with other elements
-on the Home screen.</li>
-
-<p>Cut the widget artwork asset" based on the full size of a cell, including any
-padding you want. (That is, for a 4 x 1 widget, cut the asset at 320 by 100
-pixels.)</p>
-
-<p><img src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/alignment.png" alt="Aligning widget
-graphics" ></p>
-
-<li>To reduce banding when exporting a widget, apply the following Photoshop Add
-Noise setting to your graphic.</li>
-
-<p><img src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/Add_Noise.png" alt="Add Noise
-settings for widget graphics" ></p>
-
-<li>Apply 9-patch techniques to shrink the graphic and set the padding of the
-content area. (<a href="{@docRoot}guide/developing/tools/draw9patch.html">See
-the detailed guide here.</a>)</li>
-
-<p><strong>Note:</strong> The current Android widget templates were designed
-using a custom gradient angle, which means the 9-patch techniques can't be used
-to optimize the size of the asset. However, 9-patch techniques were used to set
-the content area padding.</p>
-
-<li>In some cases, devices have low pixel depths that can cause visual banding
-and dithering issues. To solve this, application developers should pass assets
-through a "proxy" drawable defined as <code>XML:<nine-patch
-android:src="@drawable/background" android:dither="true" /></code>. This
-technique references the original artwork, in this case
-<code>"background.9.png"</code>, and instructs the device to dither it as
-needed.</li>
-
+  <li><code>minWidth</code> = 144dp + (2 &times; 8dp) + (2 &times; 56dp) =
+    <strong>272dp</strong></li>
+  <li><code>minHeight</code> = 48dp + (2 &times; 4dp) = <strong>56dp</strong></li>
 </ul>
 
-<h2 id="file">Widget graphics file format</h2>
-
-<p>Save your widget artwork using the appropriate bounding box size in PNG-24
-format on a transparent background and in 8-bit color.</p>
-
-<p><img src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/file_format.png" alt="Widget graphics file format" ></p>
+<p>If there is any inherent content padding in your widget background nine-patch, you should add to
+<code>minWidth</code> and <code>minHeight</code> accordingly.</p>
 
 
-  
+<h3 id="anatomy_resizable_widgets">Resizable widgets</h3>
+
+<p>Widgets can be resized horizontally and/or vertically as of Android 3.1, meaning that
+<code>minWidth</code> and <code>minHeight</code> effectively become the <em>default</em> size for
+the widget. You can specify the minimum widget size using <code>minResizeWidth</code> and
+<code>minResizeHeight</code>; these values should specify the size below which the widget would be
+illegible or otherwise unusable.</p>
+
+<p>This is generally a preferred feature for collection widgets such as those based on {@link
+android.widget.ListView} or {@link android.widget.GridView}.</p>
 
 
+<h3 id="anatomy_adding_margins">Adding margins to your app widget</h3>
+
+<p>As previously mentioned, Android 4.0 will automatically add small, standard margins to each edge
+of widgets on the Home screen, for applications that specify a <code>targetSdkVersion</code> of 14
+or greater. This helps to visually balance the Home screen, and thus <strong>we recommend that you
+do not add any extra margins outside of your app widget's background shape in Android
+4.0</strong>.</p>
+
+<p>It's easy to write a single layout that has custom margins applied for earlier versions of the
+platform, and has no extra margins for Android 4.0 and greater. See <a
+href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/appwidgets/index.html#AddingMargins">Adding Margins to App Widgets</a>
+in the <em>Developer's Guide</em> for information on how to achieve this with layout XML.</p>
+
+
+<h2 id="design">Designing Widget Layouts and Background Graphics</h2>
+
+<p>Most widgets will have a solid background rectangle or rounded rectangle shape. It is a best
+practice to define this shape using nine patches; one for each screen density (see <a
+href="{@docRoot}guide/practices/screens_support.html">Supporting Multiple Screens</a> for details).
+Nine-patches can be created with the <a
+href="{@docRoot}guide/developing/tools/draw9patch.html">draw9patch</a> tool, or simply with a
+graphics editing program such as Adobe&reg; Photoshop. This will allow the widget background shape
+to take up the entire available space. The nine-patch should be edge-to-edge with no transparent
+pixels providing extra margins, save for perhaps a few border pixels for <strong>subtle</strong>
+drop shadows or other subtle effects.</p>
+
+<p class="note"><strong>Note: </strong> Just like with controls in activities, you should ensure
+that interactive controls have distinct visual focused and pressed states using <a
+href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/resources/drawable-resource.html#StateList">state list
+drawables</a>.</p>
+
+
+<img src="{@docRoot}images/ninepatch_raw.png" alt="Nine-patch border pixels" id="ninepatch_raw">
+
+<p class="img-caption"><strong>Figure 5.</strong> Nine-patch border pixels indicating stretchable
+regions and content padding.</p>
+
+
+<p>Some app widgets, such as those using a {@link android.widget.StackView}, have a transparent
+background. For this case, each individual item in the StackView should use a nine-patch background
+that is edge-to-edge with little or no border transparent pixels for margins.</p>
+
+<p>For the contents of the widget, you should use flexible layouts such as {@link
+android.widget.RelativeLayout}, {@link android.widget.LinearLayout}, or {@link
+android.widget.FrameLayout}. Just as your activity layouts must adapt to different physical screen
+sizes, widget layouts must adapt to different Home screen grid cell sizes.</p>
+
+<p>Below is an example layout that a music widget showing text information and two buttons can use.
+It builds upon the previous discussion of adding margins depending on OS version.</p>
+
+<pre>
+&lt;FrameLayout
+  android:layout_width="match_parent"
+  android:layout_height="match_parent"
+  android:layout_margin="@dimen/widget_margin"&gt;
+
+  &lt;LinearLayout
+    android:layout_width="match_parent"
+    android:layout_height="match_parent"
+    android:orientation="horizontal"
+    android:background="@drawable/my_widget_background"&gt;
+
+    &lt;TextView
+      android:id="@+id/song_info"
+      android:layout_width="0dp"
+      android:layout_height="match_parent"
+      android:layout_weight="1" /&gt;
+
+    &lt;Button
+      android:id="@+id/play_button"
+      android:layout_width="@dimen/my_button_width"
+      android:layout_height="match_parent" /&gt;
+
+    &lt;Button
+      android:id="@+id/skip_button"
+      android:layout_width="@dimen/my_button_width"
+      android:layout_height="match_parent" /&gt;
+  &lt;/LinearLayout&gt;
+&lt;/FrameLayout&gt;
+</pre>
+
+<p>If you now take a look at the example music widget from the previous section, you can begin to
+use flexible layouts attributes like so:</p>
+
+
+<img src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/music_example_layouts.png"
+  alt="Excerpt flexible layouts and attributes for an example music widget"
+  id="music_example_layouts">
+
+<p class="img-caption"><strong>Figure 6.</strong> Excerpt flexible layouts and attributes.</p>
+
+
+<p>When a user adds the widget to their home screen, on an example Android 4.0 device where each
+grid cell is 80dp &times; 100dp in size and 16dp of margins are automatically applied on all sizes,
+the widget will be stretched, like so:</p>
+
+
+<img src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/music_example_stretched.png"
+  alt="Music widget sitting on an example 80dp x 100dp grid with 16dp of automatic margins
+  added by the system" id="music_example_stretched">
+
+<p class="img-caption"><strong>Figure 7.</strong> Music widget sitting on an example 80dp x 100dp
+grid with 16dp of automatic margins added by the system.</p>
+
+
+<h2 id="templates">Using the App Widget Templates Pack</h2>
+
+<p>When starting to design a new widget, or updating an existing widget, it's a good idea to first
+look at the widget design templates below. The downloadable package below includes nine-patch
+background graphics, XML, and source Adobe&reg; Photoshop files for multiple screen densities, OS
+version widget styles, and widget colors. The template package also contains graphics useful for
+making your entire widget or parts of your widget (e.g. buttons) interactive.</p>
+
+
+<img src="{@docRoot}images/widget_design/widget_template_excerpts.png"
+  alt="Widget template excerpts" id="widget_template_excerpts">
+
+<p class="img-caption"><strong>Figure 8.</strong> Excerpts from the App Widget Templates Pack
+(medium-density, dark, Android 4.0/previous styles, default/focused/pressed states).</p>
+
+
+<p>You can obtain the latest App Widget Templates Pack archive using the link below:</p>
+
+<p style="margin-left:2em"><a href="{@docRoot}shareables/app_widget_templates-v4.0.zip">
+  Download the App Widget Templates Pack for Android 4.0 &raquo;</a></p>
+

docs/html/guide/topics/appwidgets/index.jd

@@ -327,6 +327,49 @@ following layout classes:</p>
 <p>Descendants of these classes are not supported.</p>
 
 
+<h3 id="AddingMargins">Adding margins to App Widgets</h3>
+
+<p>Widgets should not generally extend to screen edges and should not visually be flush with other widgets, so you should add margins on all sides around your widget frame.</p>
+
+<p>As of Android 4.0, app widgets are automatically given padding between the widget frame and the app widget's bounding box to provide better alignment with other widgets and icons on the user's home screen. To take advantage of this strongly recommended behavior, set your application's <a href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/manifest/uses-sdk-element.html">targetSdkVersion</a> to 14 or greater.</p>
+
+<p>It's easy to write a single layout that has custom margins applied for earlier versions of the platform, and has no extra margins for Android 4.0 and greater:</p>
+
+<ol>
+  <li>Set your application's <code>targetSdkVersion</code> to 14 or greater.</li>
+  <li>Create a layout such as the one below, that references a <a href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/resources/more-resources.html#Dimension">dimension resource</a> for its margins:
+
+<pre>
+&lt;FrameLayout
+  android:layout_width="match_parent"
+  android:layout_height="match_parent"
+  <strong>android:layout_margin="@dimen/widget_margin"&gt;</strong>
+
+  &lt;LinearLayout
+    android:layout_width="match_parent"
+    android:layout_height="match_parent"
+    android:orientation="horizontal"
+    android:background="@drawable/my_widget_background"&gt;
+    &hellip;
+  &lt;/LinearLayout&gt;
+
+&lt;/FrameLayout&gt;
+</pre>
+
+  </li>
+  <li>Create two dimensions resources, one in <code>res/values/</code> to provide the pre-Android 4.0 custom margins, and one in <code>res/values-v14/</code> to provide no extra padding for Android 4.0 widgets:
+
+    <p><strong>res/values/dimens.xml</strong>:<br>
+    <pre>&lt;dimen name="widget_margin"&gt;15dp&lt;/dimen&gt;</pre></p>
+
+    <p><strong>res/values-v14/dimens.xml</strong>:<br>
+    <pre>&lt;dimen name="widget_margin"&gt;0dp&lt;/dimen&gt;</pre></p>
+  </li>
+</ol>
+
+<p>Another option is to simply build extra margins into your <a href="{@docRoot}guide/topics/graphics/2d-graphics.html#nine-patch">nine-patch</a> background assets by default, and provide different nine-patches with no margins for API level 14 or later.</p>
+
+
 <h2 id="AppWidgetProvider">Using the AppWidgetProvider Class</h2>
 
 <div class="sidebox-wrapper">