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CardView and LinearLayout with TextView children not displaying at all

I've been trying to write some dynamically generated layout code for a simple app I came up with. I want to display a vertical row of cards, each on containing an undefined number of vertically aligned text boxes.
I wrote the code to generate these and populate the text, but it doesn't appear to be working and I can't figure it out for the life of me.
I'm new to Android Studio, and Java is still relatively fresh to me as well, so I could well be missing something quite obvious here.
I've tried using a few different types of View in A. Studio, and so far most work by themselves, but none can be contained within a card which would be ideal for me. Dynamically creating and editing properties of textViews works fine, but once I include the card view they no longer appear using the exact same code.
//Define Params
LinearLayout.LayoutParams params = new LinearLayout.LayoutParams(LinearLayout.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT, LinearLayout.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT);
params.setMargins(left,top,right,bottom);
//Add a card for each ingredient
for (Ingredient ing : ingredients)
{
CardView card = new CardView(this);
CardView.LayoutParams cardParams = new CardView.LayoutParams(CardView.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, 200);
card.setLayoutParams(cardParams);
card.setRadius(15);
card.setPadding(25,25,25,25);
card.setElevation(10);
card.setMaxCardElevation(30);
card.setBackgroundColor(Color.DKGRAY);
//Make a grid for each card, text on the left, image on the right
LinearLayout linearLayoutInCard = new LinearLayout(card.getContext());
LinearLayout.LayoutParams layoutParamsInCard = new LinearLayout.LayoutParams(LinearLayout.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT, LinearLayout.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT);
linearLayoutInCard.setLayoutParams(layoutParamsInCard);
card.addView(linearLayoutInCard);
for(int x = 0; x < 3; x++)
{
TextView textView = new TextView(this);
textView.setLayoutParams(params);
textView.setPadding(left, top, right, bottom);
textView.setTextSize(15);
textView.setElevation(11);
textView.setTextColor(Color.WHITE);
linearLayoutInCard.addView(textView);
switch (x)
{
case 0:
textView.setText(ing.name);
break;
case 1:
textView.setText(ing.price);
break;
case 2:
//textView.setText(ing.calories);
break;
}
}
I'm expecting a vertical row of cards with text boxes vertically aligned withing them, each with their own content (this whole script will only make one card for now, but that's a data driven thing) yet when I run the application, I get nothing but a blank screen.

Before venturing much further...this could be an example of the XY Problem.
Maybe have a look at the RecyclerView option?
RecyclerViews are entirely designed to manage the UI look and responsiveness of changing/scrolling data sets.
They can be a bit "what the heck" at first...but once writing them a few times, your UI look and code base is a lot more efficient and clean.
RecyclerView example Youtube

How to align imageViews which are created dynamically inside a class and not the xml file

My Problem: I want to create a for loop in the onCreate() method to save imageViews dynamically. I am being able to do everything properly it's just that the imageView is displayed at the top left most corner, i.e i am not being able to assign it it's alignment.
My Code:
RelativeLayout layout = findViewById(R.id.relativeLayout);
for(int i=0;i<3;i++)
{
ImageView image = new ImageView(this);
image.setMaxHeight(200);
image.setMaxWidth(200);
//CODE TO ADD THE ALIGNMENT OF THE IMAGE
image.setImageResource(R.drawable.red);
layout.addView(image);
}

Try this one:
for(int i=0;i<3;i++)
{
ImageView image = new ImageView(this);
image.setMaxHeight(200);
image.setMaxWidth(200);
//CODE TO ADD THE ALIGNMENT OF THE IMAGE
image.setImageResource(R.drawable.red);
RelativeLayout.LayoutParams layoutParams = new RelativeLayout.LayoutParams(RelativeLayout.MarginLayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT, 200);
layoutParams.setMargins(40, 40, 40, 40);
image.setLayoutParams(layoutParams);
layout.addView(image);
}

The legal values can be found at https://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/View.html#setTextAlignment(int)
But this has no effect on an ImageView. I'm not sure what you're actually truing to do, so I can't help you. My best guess is you're trying to arrange views within the parent layout somehow, but to help with that we'd need to know the type of layout the parent is and what you want to do.

Cannot add a RelativeLayout to a RelativeLayout programmatically

So I'm trying to add a RelativeLayout to a RelativeLayout however, when I run my app, it's an IllegalStateException that shows this error: The specified child already has a parent. You must call removeView() on the child's parent first. I'm sure you guys have seen this before. My question is how do I properly nest two relative layouts together?
Here is the code snippet that produces the exception:
RelativeLayout.LayoutParams layoutParams = new RelativeLayout.LayoutParams(RelativeLayout.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT, RelativeLayout.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT);
RelativeLayout newFrame = new RelativeLayout(vidRipperService.getBaseContext());
newFrame.setLayoutParams(layoutParams);
// configure image view constraints...
// have the frame be right in the center of the layout.
ImageView editedFrame = new ImageView(vidRipperService.getBaseContext());
// Note: when doing padding the height and the width must be a multiple of two. A nice example is 70+30 = 100/2 = 50, but 80+30 = 110/2 = 55 <- not a multiple of two. Keep this in mind.
editedFrame.setId(View.generateViewId());
editedFrame.setPadding(30,30,30,0); // padding of 30 around the whole view.
editedFrame.setImageBitmap(frame); // set the frame to be that of the actual background.
RelativeLayout.LayoutParams frameLayoutParams = new RelativeLayout.LayoutParams(RelativeLayout.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, RelativeLayout.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT);
frameLayoutParams.addRule(RelativeLayout.CENTER_HORIZONTAL); // place frames in center of the view.
editedFrame.setLayoutParams(frameLayoutParams);
newFrame.addView(breakingNewsLayout); // add the breaking news layout to this view!
newFrame.addView(editedFrame);
The problem is specifically triggered from the second to last line newFrame.addView(breakingNewsLayout) That line triggers the exception. The breakingNewsLayout is another relative layout that I would like to add to newFrame. I would appreciate any knowledge on how to get this to work. I never ran into a problem when nesting layouts before, but for some reason, this is really not playing nice.
Here is the code that creates the breakingNewsLayout:
private void createBreakingNewsLayout()
{
breakingNewsLayout = new RelativeLayout(vidRipperService.getBaseContext()); // create the new breaking new layout.
breakingNewsLayout.setElevation(5);
breakingNewsLayout.setPadding(0,0,0,15);
breakingNewsLayout.setBackgroundColor(ContextCompat.getColor(vidRipperService, R.color.transparent)); // ensure that the background is transparent.
// MATCH_PARENT for both width and height so that banner is shown on the frame for the video.
RelativeLayout.LayoutParams breakingNewsParams = new RelativeLayout.LayoutParams(ViewGroup.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT, ViewGroup.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT);
breakingNewsParams.setMargins(0,50,0,0); // todo: ensure that the margin is 50dp not pixels!
breakingNewsParams.addRule(RelativeLayout.CENTER_HORIZONTAL);
breakingNewsLayout.setLayoutParams(breakingNewsParams); // set the layout params for the breaking news layout.
// set all of the text view attributes.
TextView liveBannerText = getLiveBannerText();
TextView breakingNewsTime = getBreakingNewsTime();
TextView breakingNewsHeadline = getBreakingNewsHeadline(breakingNewsTime.getId()); // headline goes about the breaking news time.
TextView breakingNewsBanner = getBreakingNewsBanner(breakingNewsHeadline.getId()); // banner goes above the breaking news headline
TextView viddyWatermarkText = getViddyWatermarkText(breakingNewsHeadline.getId()); // viddy watermark goes above the breaking news headline.
TextView breakingNewsDescription = getBreakingNewsDescription(breakingNewsTime.getId()); // breaking news description goes to the end of the breaking news time
// Add all of the views for the breaking news layout.
breakingNewsLayout.addView(liveBannerText);
breakingNewsLayout.addView(breakingNewsBanner);
breakingNewsLayout.addView(viddyWatermarkText);
breakingNewsLayout.addView(breakingNewsHeadline);
breakingNewsLayout.addView(breakingNewsTime);
breakingNewsLayout.addView(breakingNewsDescription);
}

maybe you should remove breakingNewsLayout before you add it:
((ViewGroup) breakingNewsLayout.getParent()).removeView(breakingNewsLayout);

I figured it out! After extensive researching and testing the reason I was getting this issue was because I was attempting to reuse the breakingNewsLayout when creating a new frame. I have x amount of frames and I needed to generate the breakingNewsLayout every single time I wanted to apply the layout to the frame. Since I was trying to reuse the layout that I have already added, the layout already has a parent and thus the exception above was called.
Apologies for the question and any lack of details.

Runtime added View does not know it's location

I am adding a View to a RelativeLayout at runtime, which is working fine, but now I would like to display a TextView just to left of this View but I am unable to retrieve the Top or Left of this View in order to calculate the TextView's position.
The code I have is
private void displayGuitar() {
for (GuitarString guitarString: guitar.getGuitarStrings()) {
GuitarStringView guitarStringView = new GuitarStringView(context, attributeSet, guitarString);
this.addView(guitarStringView);
// Add Note name
TextView noteNameView = new TextView(context);
RelativeLayout.LayoutParams noteParams =
new RelativeLayout.LayoutParams(ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT);
noteParams.addRule(LEFT_OF, guitarStringView.getId());
Log.w("string top", String.valueOf(guitarStringView.getTop()));
Log.w("string left", String.valueOf(guitarStringView.getLeft()));
noteParams.setMargins(0, 0, 2, 0);
noteNameView.setLayoutParams(noteParams);
noteNameView.setText(guitarString.getTunedNote().getNoteName(0));
this.addView(noteNameView);
}
}
This results in the TextViews all appearing on top of each other (in the correct X position) but I can't set the Top margin as both of the Log statements return 0. How can I determine what the Top position of the GuitarStringView is?
EDIT
Following advice from laalto I have now generated ID for the guitarStringView and confirmed it's being assigned. However, if I use LEFT_OF, RIGHT_OF etc the TextViews are not displayed, but if I use ALIGN_PARENT_RIGHT they're displayed fine? Code is now as follows
private void displayGuitar() {
for (GuitarString guitarString: guitar.getGuitarStrings()) {
GuitarStringView guitarStringView = new GuitarStringView(context, attributeSet, guitarString);
int viewId = guitarStringView.generateViewId();
guitarStringView.setId(viewId);
this.addView(guitarStringView);
// Add Note name
TextView noteNameView = new TextView(context);
RelativeLayout.LayoutParams noteParams =
new RelativeLayout.LayoutParams(ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT);
noteParams.addRule(RelativeLayout.LEFT_OF, viewId);
noteNameView.setLayoutParams(noteParams);
noteNameView.setText(guitarString.getTunedNote().getNoteName(0));
this.addView(noteNameView);
}
}
EDIT 2
The accepted fix didn't work at first as I hadn't override the onMeasure() of my GuitarStringView which according to the documentation defaults to 100x100.

First, your guitarStringView doesn't have an id and getId() will return -1, that is, NO_ID. The LEFT_OF rule therefore doesn't work as it doesn't refer to any actual id. To fix that, just set some id to the view.
Second, the view has not been measured nor laid out yet so that's why size and position come out as zeros.
using addRule with any of LEFT_OF, RIGHT_OF or BELOW the TextView is no longer displayed at all
Possibly the string view is already taking up all horizontal space. Add another constraint such as ALIGN_PARENT_LEFT to make the text view left edge align with parent relative layout's left edge.

You said "at runtime", which means you're potentially invoking this method in onCreate, or onResume. These methods should start behaving as expected in onWindowFocusChanged(boolean).
See this other question:
getRight, getLeft, getTop returning zero

How to change Button size in Android?

I am trying to change the button size dynamically, but after using setWidth() and setHeight() nothing happens.
This is my code...
GridLayout grid = (GridLayout)findViewById(R.id.grid);
grid.setColumnCount(10);
grid.setRowCount(10);
cells = new Button[100];
for (int i = 0; i < cells.length; i++) {
cells[i] = new Button(this);
cells[i].setWidth(grid.getWidth()/10);
cells[i].setHeight(grid.getHeight()/10);
grid.addView(cells[i]);
}
Any ideas/solutions?

LayoutParams should solve the issue:
This in an example of how it should work taken from another stackOverflow post:
ViewGroup.LayoutParams params = myButton.getLayoutParams();
params.width = 400;
myButton.setLayoutParams(params);

I figured this out on my own and it was very simple, I feel stupid for overlooking it.
grid.addView(cells[i], display.getWidth()/grid.getColumnCount(), display.getWidth()/grid.getColumnCount());
In this line of code I add the button to the layout with the "cells[i]" while the trailing two parameters tell the view what size I want the button to be.
Another example:
addView(myButton, 100, 200);
Above the addView is adding myButton with 100 pixel width by 200 pixel height.

Maybe try to call invalidate method. If the view is visible, onDraw(android.graphics.Canvas) will be called at some point in the future. This must be called from a UI thread. To call from a non-UI thread, call postInvalidate().
Source: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/View.html#invalidate%28%29