It is good praxis not to include literal sizes in your layout — with the exception of the mythical and undocumented internal:layout_maxHeight and internal:layout_minHeight. So here the dimensions you need to make this layout working:

1 
12 <resources>
13  <dimen name='Big_Text_Size'>16spdimen>
14  <dimen name='Horizontal_Padding'>8dpdimen>
15  <dimen name='Vertical_Padding'>2dpdimen>
17 resources>

1 
13 
14 <resources>
15  <style parent='@android:style/Widget.TextView' name='Big_Text'>
16  <item name='android:singleLine'>trueitem>
17  <item name='android:textSize'>@dimen/Big_Text_Sizeitem>
18  <item name='android:typeface'>monospaceitem>
19  <item name='android:maxLines'>1item>
20  <item name='android:ellipsize'>enditem>
21  style>
42 resources>

A last little trick of me: Fill in some dummy text into every display field which would normally be empty at application start. That you can evaluate the design better in the Android-Designer or Preview windows. And yes, I fill in the description field for bitmaps as well — as prescribed by the accessibility (for the disabled) guidelines.

1 
10 <resources xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
11  <string name = "Dummy">«Dummy»string>
12  <string name = "Two_Line_Style_Icon">iconstring>
19 resources>

Programm Code

In our case coding could not be simpler. Notification are not dynamically updated but replaced with a new notification. Which means that there is no need for anything but a constructor:

1 /*
2 * ********************************************************* {{{1 ************
3 * Copyright © 2013 … 2013 Noser Engineering
10 * ********************************************************** }}}1 ***********
11 */
12 
13 package com.noser.ui;
14 
15 import org.jetbrains.annotations.NotNull;
16 
17 /**
18 * 

19 * Notification layout to display two lines of results
20 * 
21 *
22 * @authormartin.krischik
23 * @version 2.6
24 * @since 2.6
25 */
26 @android.annotation.TargetApi (11)
27 public class TwoLineNotification
28  extends
29  android.widget.RemoteViews
30 {
31  /**
32 * 

33 * TAG as class name for logging

34 * 
35 */
36  private static final String TAG;
37 
38  static
39  {
40  TAG = TwoLineNotification.class.getName ();
41  } // static
42 
43  /**
44 * Create a new RemoteViews object that will display the views contained in the specified
45 * layout file.
46 *
47 * @parampackageName
48 * Name of the package that contains the layout resource
49 * @paramlayoutId
50 * The id of the layout resource
51 * @paramtitle
52 * Notification title text
53 * @paramtext
54 * 2 line of text to display
55 * @paramiconId
56 * ID of the notification icon.
57 */
58  public TwoLineNotification (
59  @NotNull final String packageName,
60  final int layoutId,
61  @NotNull final CharSequence title,
62  @NotNull final CharSequence[] text,
63  final int iconId)
64  {
65  super (packageName, layoutId);
66 
74  com.noser.Required.range (text, 2, 2);
75 
76  this.setImageViewResource (android.R.id.icon, iconId);
77  this.setTextViewText (android.R.id.title, title);
78  this.setTextViewText (android.R.id.text1, text [0]);
79  this.setTextViewText (android.R.id.text2, text [1]);
80 
82  return;
83  } // TwoLineNotification
84 } // TwoLineNotification

That is all what is needed. Sure you can make it more complicated with set and get methods and some factory pattern. But what for?

One more thing: the range command is used as well and I won’t withhold that:

1    /**
2 * 

3 * test if a array lenght is inside the range min … max
4 * 
5 *
6 * @paramvalue
7 * value to test
8 * @parammin
9 * minimum allowed value
10 * @parammax
11 * maximum allowed value
12 * @throwsIllegalArgumentException
13 * when value is outside min … max
14 */
15  public static void range (
16  @NotNull final Object[] value,
17  final int min,
18  final int max)
19  {
20  if ((min > value.length) || (value.length > max))
21  {
22  final IllegalArgumentException Exception =
23  new IllegalArgumentException ("length of value “" + java.util.Arrays.toString (value) + "” is not in length range " +
24  min + " … " + max);
25  android.util.Log.e (Required.TAG, "LOG00145:", Exception);
26  throw Exception;
27  } // if
28  } // range

Yes, I am a great fan of defensive programming.

How to use

That too is pretty simple. You use an instance of android.app.Notification.Builder to create your notification. Within android.app.Notification.Builder there is a method called setContent. Use that to set your new remote view as content of your notification. The following sample also contains all backward compatibility checks:

 1  /**
 2 * 

 3 * unique id for the foreground notification — just a random int. (0x1f59b12)
 4 * 
 5 */
 6  private static final int Foreground_Notification_ID = 32873234;
 7 
 46  /**
 47 * 

 48 * icon id to display on the notification. Note: No notification is shown wenn set to 0.
 49 * 
 50 */
 51  private int foregroundNotificationIconId;
 52 
 53  /**
 54 * 

 55 * tile for to display on the notification. Note: No notification is shown wenn set to null.
 56 * 
 57 */
 58  @Nullable
 59  private CharSequence foregroundNotificationTitle;
 60 
121  /**
122 * 

123 * create a notification builder to display the give two line of text.
124 * 
125 *
126 * @paramactionClass
127 * activity class to start when the notification is clicked
128 * @paramtext
129 * two lines of text to display
130 * @returna builder to create a notification
131 */
132  @SuppressWarnings ("FeatureEnvy")
133  @android.annotation.TargetApi (16)
134  private final android.app.Notification createNotification (
135  @Nullable final Class actionClass,
136  @NotNull final CharSequence[] text)
137  {
142  com.noser.Required.isTrue (text.length == 2, "text.length must be 2");
143  com.noser.Required.notNull (text [0], "text [0]");
144  com.noser.Required.notNull (text [1], "text [1]");
145 
146  final android.app.Notification.Builder retval =
147  new android.app.Notification.Builder (this);
148 
149  if (actionClass != null)
150  {
151  final android.content.Intent openAction =
152  new android.content.Intent (this, actionClass);
153  final android.app.PendingIntent pendingOpenAction =
154  android.app.PendingIntent.getActivity (
155  /* context => */this,
156  /* requestCode => */0,
157  /* intent => */openAction,
158  /* flags => */0);
159  retval.setContentIntent (pendingOpenAction);
160  }
161 
162  if (android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= android.os.Build.VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB)
163  {
164  assert this.foregroundNotificationTitle != null : "caller will make sure it is so.";
165 
166  final Package layoutPackage = com.noser.apklib.R.class.getPackage ();
167  final com.noser.ui.TwoLineNotification Notification_Layout =
168  new com.noser.ui.TwoLineNotification (
169  /* packageName => */getPackageName(),
170  /* layoutId => */com.noser.apklib.R.layout.two_line_notification,
171  /* title => */this.foregroundNotificationTitle,
172  /* text => */text,
173  /* iconid => */this.foregroundNotificationIconId);
174 
175  retval.setContent (Notification_Layout);
176  }
177  else
178  {
179  retval.setContentTitle (this.foregroundNotificationTitle);
180  retval.setContentText (text [0].toString () + '|' + text [1].toString ());
181  } // if
182 
183  if (android.os.Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= android.os.Build.VERSION_CODES.JELLY_BEAN)
184  {
185  retval.setPriority (android.app.Notification.PRIORITY_DEFAULT);
186  } // if
187 
188  retval.setSmallIcon (this.foregroundNotificationIconId);
189  retval.setOngoing (true);
190 
193  return retval.getNotification ();
194  } // createNotification

Result

Notification

The Result looks like this: