How to use ScrollView in Android?

How to use ScrollView

Using ScrollView is not very difficult. You can just add one to your layout and put whatever you want to scroll inside. ScrollView only takes one child so if you want to put a few things inside then you should make the first thing be something like a LinearLayout.

<ScrollView
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent">

    <LinearLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:orientation="vertical">

        <!-- things to scroll -->

    </LinearLayout>
</ScrollView>

If you want to scroll things horizontally, then use a HorizontalScrollView.

Making the content fill the screen

As is talked about in this post, sometimes you want the ScrollView content to fill the screen. For example, if you had some buttons at the end of a readme. You want the buttons to always be at the end of the text and at bottom of the screen, even if the text doesn't scroll.

If the content scrolls, everything is fine. However, if the content is smaller than the size of the screen, the buttons are not at the bottom.

This can be solved with a combination of using fillViewPort on the ScrollView and using a layout weight on the content. Using fillViewPort makes the ScrollView fill the parent area. Setting the layout_weight on one of the views in the LinearLayout makes that view expand to fill any extra space.

Here is the XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ScrollView
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:fillViewport="true">                        <--- fillViewport

    <LinearLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:orientation="vertical">

        <TextView
            android:id="@+id/textview"
            android:layout_height="0dp"                <--- 
            android:layout_weight="1"                  <--- set layout_weight
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:padding="6dp"
            android:text="hello"/>

        <LinearLayout
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"       <--- wrap_content
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:background="@android:drawable/bottom_bar"
            android:gravity="center_vertical">

            <Button
                android:layout_width="0dp"
                android:layout_weight="1"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:text="Accept" />

            <Button
                android:layout_width="0dp"
                android:layout_weight="1"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:text="Refuse" />

        </LinearLayout>
    </LinearLayout>
</ScrollView>

The idea for this answer came from a previous answer that is now deleted (link for 10K users). The content of this answer is an update and adaptation of this post.

Just make the top-level layout a ScrollView:

<ScrollView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:fillViewport="true">

    <TableLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:stretchColumns="1">

        <!-- everything you already have -->

    </TableLayout>
</ScrollView>