Difference between View and ViewGroup in Android

Question

What is the difference between a View and a ViewGroup in Android programming?

Answer 1

A ViewGroup describes the layout of the Views in its group. The two basic examples of ViewGroups are LinearLayout and RelativeLayout. Breaking LinearLayout even further, you can have either Vertical LinearLayout or Horizontal LinearLayout. If you choose Vertical LinearLayout, your Views will stack vertically on your screen. The two most basic examples of Views are TextView and Button. Thus, if you have a ViewGroup of Vertical LinearLayout, your Views (e.g. TextViews and Buttons) would line up vertically down your screen.

When the other posters show nested ViewGroups, what they mean is, for example, one of the rows in my Vertical LinearLayout might actually, at the lower level, be several items arranged horizontally. In that case, I'd have a Horizontal LinearLayout as one of the children of my top level Vertical LinearLayout.

Example of Nested ViewGroups:
Parent ViewGroup = Vertical LinearLayout

Row1: TextView1
Row2: Button1
Row3: Image TextView2 Button2 <-- Horizontal Linear nested in Vertical Linear
Row4: TextView3
Row5: Button3