Leveraging layout controls

Layout controls are a fundamental tool to define an adaptive and flexible UI for FireMonkey apps.

If you want to create a flexible and fluid UI that adapts to different device sizes, you should not position your controls at absolute points. In most of the previous demos, we used alignments and nested controls to allow the actual controls to adapt to the hosting surface and window. In the MultiViewDemo example, for example, I used a layout with a speed button and a label with specific alignments.

The TLayout control is the base layout. It’s an empty and invisible container. By invisible, I mean it has no visible elements in the UI, but the control itself needs to be visible for a user to see the controls it hosts. The TLayout control can use absolute positioning or alignment with margins, like any other FireMonkey container control.

However, there are a number of inherited layout classes that offer specialized behavior. If you search layout...