Absolute positioning

Counter-intuitively, you can do absolute positioning using a RelativeLayout. (There also exists an AbsoluteLayout in Android, but its use is deprecated.) Here’s a good answer on stackoverflow on how to do it from Java, but you can also set up objects on a RelativeLayout in the XML layout designer:

You can position the ImageViews with the mouse, but here is what the XML looks like. Note the properties layout_marginLeft and layout_marginTop in the ImageViews.

<?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:layout_width="fill_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:text="Hello World, MyActivity"
            android:id="@+id/textView" />
    <RelativeLayout
            android:layout_width="fill_parent"
            android:layout_height="fill_parent">
        <Button
                android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:text="New Button"
                android:id="@+id/button"
                android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
                android:layout_marginLeft="22dp"
                android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"/>
        <ImageView
                android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:id="@+id/pinkRabbit"
                android:src="@drawable/pink_rabbit_smile_animal_elonizm_pet"
                android:layout_toRightOf="@+id/button"
                android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
                android:layout_marginTop="52dp"/>
        <ImageView
                android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:id="@+id/greenRabbit"
                android:src="@drawable/rabbit_animal_green"
                android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
                android:layout_marginLeft="10dp"
                android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
                android:layout_marginTop="21dp"/>
    </RelativeLayout>
</LinearLayout>

Here is a program that, when you click on the text view, moves the green rabbit to the right.

public class MyActivity extends Activity implements View.OnClickListener {

    View greenRabbit;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.main);
        View textView = findViewById(R.id.textView);
        greenRabbit = findViewById(R.id.greenRabbit);
        textView.setOnClickListener(this);
    }

    @Override
    public void onClick(View v) {
        RelativeLayout.LayoutParams params;
        params = (RelativeLayout.LayoutParams) greenRabbit.getLayoutParams();
        params.leftMargin += 25;
        greenRabbit.setLayoutParams(params);
    }
}

And a demo video:

The two images I used in this project, in case you want to grab them: