Understanding how actually drawRect or drawing coordinates work in Android

This will make sense.

float left = 100, top = 100; // basically (X1, Y1)

float right = left + 100; // width (distance from X1 to X2)
float bottom = top + 100; // height (distance from Y1 to Y2)

Thus

RectF myRectum = new RectF(left, top, right, bottom);
canvas.drawRect(myRectum, myPaint);

canvas.drawRect(left,top,right,bottom,paint);

In this

  1. left: distance of the left side of rectangular from left side of canvas.

  2. top:Distance of top side of rectangular from the top side of canvas

  3. right:distance of the right side of rectangular from left side of canvas.
  4. bottom: Distance of the bottom side of rectangle from top side of canvas.

Wish my note as below help you understand the relativity belong rect, canvas and view.

/**
 * Rect holds four integer coordinates for a rectangle.
 * The rectangle is represented by the coordinates of its 4 edges (left, top, right bottom).
 * These fields can be accessed directly. Use width() and height() to retrieve the rectangle's width and height.
 *
 * Note that the right and bottom coordinates are exclusive.
 * This means a Rect being drawn untransformed onto a Canvas will draw into the column and row described by its left and top coordinates
 * , but not those of its bottom and right.
 *
 * With regard to calling to Canvas#drawRect(left,top,right,bottom,paint)
 *
 * left: Distance of the left side of rectangle from left side of canvas.
 * top: Distance of top side of rectangle from the top side of canvas
 * right: Distance of the right side of rectangle from left side of canvas.
 * bottom: Distance of the bottom side of rectangle from top side of canvas.
 * __________________________________
 *|
 *|
 *|   __l_______________________r__
 *|  |         view group A        |
 *| t|  0______________________w   |
 *|  |  | **** view group B *** |  |
 *|  |  | **** canvas of B **** |  |
 *|  |  | ********************* |  |
 *|  |  | ********************* |  |
 *|  |  | ********************* |  |
 *|  |  | ***** __________ **** |  |
 *|  |  | *****|## rect ##|**** |  |
 *|  |  | *****|##########|**** |  |
 *|  |  | *****|##########|**** |  |
 *|  |  | *****|##########|**** |  |
 *|  |  | *****|##########|**** |  |
 *|  |  | ***** ---------- **** |  |
 *|  |  | ********************* |  |
 *| b|  h-----------------------   |
 *|  |                             |
 *|  |                             |
 *|   -----------------------------
 *|
 * -----------------------------------
 *
 * 1. l, t, r, b are coordinates of view group B (PastryChart) relative to view group A (parent of PastryChart).
 * 2. The size of canvas of B is same as the size of the view group B
 *    , which means canvas of B is a canvas which the view group B is rendered to.
 * 3. The coordinates of rect is relative to a canvas, here is the canvas of B
 *    , which means the coordinates of rect going to represent child of view group B are relative to the canvas of B.
 *    ex. for a rect holding left = 0, the position of its left is located on the same position of the left of view group B
 *    ex. for a rect holding right = w, the position of its right is located on the same position of the right of view group B
 *    ex. for a rect holding top = 0, the position of its top is located on the same position of the top of view group B
 *    ex. for a rect holding bottom = h, the position of its bottom is located on the same position of the bottom of view group B
 * 4. The rect is used to stored the child measurement computed in measure pass
 *    for forward positioning child view (PastryView) in the layout pass taken by parent view (PastryChart).
 * 5. All of them are in pixels (px)
 */

X runs horizontally, from left to right. Y runs vertically, from top to bottom. It's exactly the same as on your graphics. So (0/0) is at top left.

When you go "up" Y will of course get smaller, as it grows from top to bottom.

You have to pay attention to laying out elements like ListViews, these will give a partial (or new, you cannot tell) canvas to your views that are drawn. These views will have 0x0 at their own top/left position. If you need the absolute you have to subsequently call View.getLocationOnScreen() and calculate offsets yourself.