ok,

what i am trying to do is to embed a custom view in the default layout main.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent">

    <com.lam.customview.CustomDisplayView
        android:id="@+id/custom_display_view1"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="fill_parent" />


    <LinearLayout
        android:orientation="horizontal"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content">

        <Button
            android:id="@+id/prev"
            android:layout_width="0dip"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_weight="50"
            android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceSmall"
            android:text="@string/prev" />
    </LinearLayout>
</LinearLayout>

as you can see the class is called com.lam.customview.CustomDisplayView, with the id of custom_display_view1.

now in the com.lam.customview.CustomDisplayView class, i want to use another layout called custom_display_view.xml because i don't want to programmatically create controls/widgets.

custom_display_view.xml is just a button and an image, the content of which i want to change based on certain conditions:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    >
    <TextView 
    android:id="@+id/display_text_view1" 
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
    android:text="@string/hello"
    />
    <ImageView 
    android:id="@+id/display_image_view1" 
    android:layout_width="wrap_content" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content">
    </ImageView>

</LinearLayout>

i tried to do:

1)

public CustomDisplayView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
    super(context, attrs);

    try
    {
        // register our interest in hearing about changes to our surface
        SurfaceHolder holder = getHolder();
        holder.addCallback(this);

        View.inflate(context, R.layout.custom_display_view, null);

...

but got this error, "03-08 20:33:15.711: ERROR/onCreate(10879): Binary XML file line #8: Error inflating class java.lang.reflect.Constructor ".

2)

public CustomDisplayView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
    super(context, attrs);

    try
    {
        // register our interest in hearing about changes to our surface
        SurfaceHolder holder = getHolder();
        holder.addCallback(this);

        View.inflate(context, R.id.custom_display_view1, null);

...

but got this error, "03-08 20:28:47.401: ERROR/CustomDisplayView(10806): Resource ID #0x7f050002 type #0x12 is not valid "

also, if i do it this way, as someone has suggested, it's not clear to me how the custom_display_view.xml is associated with the custom view class.

thanks.