Adding view to bottom of layout inside a scrollview

I ran into the same issue. I never could find a very pleasing solution, but here is how I did it. Maybe someone else has a better way, I hate adding layouts that don't do anything.

My hack was to add a dummy linearlayout at the bottom of the scrollview that has fill_parent to take up all the room and force the scrollview to fill the screen. Then add whatever component I want to that linearlayout.

Here is one of my layouts that does this:

<ScrollView
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:layout_weight="1"
    android:fillViewport="true" >

    <RelativeLayout
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="fill_parent"
        android:layout_marginTop="15px" >

        <!-- bunch of components here -->

        <LinearLayout
            android:layout_width="fill_parent"
            android:layout_height="fill_parent"
            android:layout_below="@+id/spinner"
            android:layout_marginTop="5px"
            android:gravity="center_horizontal|bottom"
            android:paddingTop="2px" >

            <Button
                android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:paddingLeft="20px"
                android:paddingRight="20px"
                android:text="Delete" />
        </LinearLayout>
    </RelativeLayout>
</ScrollView>

I had the same issue and found this page:

http://www.curious-creature.org/2010/08/15/scrollviews-handy-trick/

Basically, you set the ScrollView's android:fillViewport to true, which will allow the child view to expand to the same height as the ScrollView itself, filling out the space. You then just need to have one of the child controls' layout_height set to fill_parent and layout_weight to 1, causing that control to "spring" to fill the empty space.

Note that if the contents of the ScrollView are already tall enough to fill the ScrollView, the android:fillViewport has no effect, so the setting only kicks in when needed.

My final XML looks like similar to this:

<ScrollView
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:fillViewport="true">
    <LinearLayout
        android:orientation="vertical"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content">
        <LinearLayout
            android:layout_height="fill_parent"
            android:layout_weight="1">
            <!-- this expands to fill the empty space if needed -->
        </LinearLayout>

        <!-- this sits at the bottom of the ScrollView,
        getting pushed out of view if the ScrollView's
        content is tall enough -->
        <ImageView
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:src="@drawable/footer_image">
        </ImageView>
    </LinearLayout>
</ScrollView>