I am working in a kotlin project, and have been searching for some documentation about the screen layout.
What i want to do is very rudimentairy i guess. I want is to put a label/prompt/text before a EditText.
In html i would program something like this:
<form>
<label for="fname">First name:</label>
<input type="text" id="fname" name="fname"><br><br>
</form>
And get the a result like this:
First name: ___________
All i can find is a "android:hint=". But it only fills the View if there is nothing in it.
Should one add extra (plainText) elements for each label ? and how should one contstrain it to the EditText ? or is there some kind of grouping ?
Update after received answers
After reading the answers i understand that you have to roll your own solution. (I am still fighting with androidstudio because it sorts the xml elements so they are not always where i put them.)
I do not use a TextInputLayout (i hope this is allowed) which makes it all quite simple. So this is my solution for now:
We link the TextView ("Date of Birth") to the parent layout:
<TextView
android:id="#+id/dobLabel2"
android:layout_width="92dp"
android:layout_height="23dp"
android:layout_marginStart="76dp"
android:layout_marginBottom="112dp"
android:labelFor="#id/dobInputText"
android:text="Date of Birth"
app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="parent" />
and we link the EditText to the TextView
<com.google.android.material.textfield.TextInputEditText
android:id="#+id/dobInputText"
android:layout_width="240dp"
android:layout_height="54dp"
android:hint="Day/Month/Year"
app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="#+id/dobLabel2"
app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="#+id/dobLabel2" />
If you play with the layout_contraints you can position the the EditText also to the left of the label.
Thanks for all the input, i think i can solve my problem now.
Android EditText (now often used as a combination of TextInputLayout containing one (and only one) TextInputEditText) can display a Hint, but only while the view has no focus/content.
If you want to provide a better description on what a particular EditText is for, for many reasons (accessibility, often neglected, is not the only one), you may want to provide an extra TextView positioned anywhere you consider it ok to add the extra information needed to better describe the EditText.
The main thing to keep in mind, is to provide this TextView with the labelFor attribute, as described in the Android documentation.
If you're reading this and wondering but why do I have to provide an extra Textview to describe, why not just use the hint, android is horrible!!!, keep in mind that the Hint is good for different reasons, but not for describing what the field is about.
E.g.: Imagine you're asking for a Date of Birth. You may be tempted to write this: (note this is a simplified version obviously):
<com.google.android.material.textfield.TextInputLayout
android:id="#+id/dobInputLayout"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" >
<com.google.android.material.textfield.TextInputEditText
android:id="#+id/dobInputText"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:hint="Date of Birth" />
</com.google.android.material.textfield.TextInputLayout>
And you'd be mostly ok, but then your designer comes in and says, well, we also want to show the Format that we accept, for e.g.: DAY/MONTH/YEAR...
Now you're going to change the hint to be:
android:hint="Date of Birth (DD/MM/YYYY)
And you'd again, be ok, but for accessibility users... this doesn't read very efficiently nor is very clear. You also get back from your designer who says: "but I don't want the (DD/MM/YYYY) part to be visible after the user focuses or types something..."
And so on and so forth.
The correct (according to Google, Material Design, and who knows what), is to provide an extra TextView that accompanies the TextInput combos:
(again, keep in mind this is pseudo-code, when in doubt, read the documentation)
<TextView
android:id="#+id/dobLabel"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Date of Birth"
android:labelFor="#id/dobInputText />
<com.google.android.material.textfield.TextInputLayout
android:id="#+id/dobInputLayout"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" >
<com.google.android.material.textfield.TextInputEditText
android:id="#+id/dobInputText"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:hint="Day/Month/Year" />
</com.google.android.material.textfield.TextInputLayout>
Do not provide contentDescription on those views because they will likely interfere with TalkBack/Accessibility. These are the conventions that Android set in place, you may or may not like them, but this is how it's expected to be done.
Do I think EditText should be a better widget and handle this better for you? Yes. Does it matter what I think? Nope.
Yes, you have to add one more textview before adding edit text. The hint is used for displaying messages in edittext.
Related
I know, the question has already been asked many times on this forum, but no answer worked for me...
When I write in one of my EditTexts, the word being written is underlined, and I would like it not to be underlined... I've already seen answers like "You have to change the android:background", or "You have to put the textNoSuggestions attribute in android:inputType"... But I've already done all that - see the code just below - (and I even keep them by default) and it doesn't work.
A really huge thank you to everyone who will take the time to answer this question!
XML EditText :
<EditText
android:id="#+id/editP1"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_gravity="center_vertical"
android:layout_margin="4dp"
android:autofillHints="username"
android:background="#drawable/background_card"
android:gravity="center_horizontal"
android:hint="#string/player_name"
android:imeOptions="flagNoFullscreen"
android:inputType="textFilter|textNoSuggestions"
android:maxLength="12"
android:padding="4dp"
android:textSize="25sp" />
<!-- The ' android:imeOptions = "flagNoFullscreen" ' was only necessary to show the underline word since my app is always in landscape mode -->
Pictures :
As outlined at Android edittext is underlined when typing, this may be a function of the keyboard in use, rather than the EditText. Without knowing which specific solutions you've tried and have failed (you say no answer worked for you, but don't list things you tried) it is hard to offer a specific suggestion, but I'd suggest the
android:inputType="textVisiblePassword|textNoSuggestions"
option and see if that works. The password should typically prevent the keyboard from suggesting things (since no suggestions are typically useful for passwords).
I have an activity called medical and I just want to layout some text that explains what to do in a medical emergency. It will just be hard coded in, doesn't need to come from a db or anything complicated.
I current have just a textview like this:
<TextView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Do not move the patient,unless it is necessary, to reduce the risk of possible further injury"
app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent"
app:layout_constraintHorizontal_bias="0.134"
app:layout_constraintVertical_bias="0.032" />
But I need to write it out so it looks like this:
Do not move the patient,unless it is necessary, to reduce the risk of possible further injury
Render assistance and call 911
Contact Gary Edwards
Despatch staff
It would be really good if I could make the link to the phone number work as well.
Thanks everyone
You can simply add a newline character to add line breaks :)
"First Line \nSecond Line"
You can also have the control auto-detect phone numbers so long as they are in the correct format:
android:autoLink="phone"
You should also be able to use \u2022 for a bullet.
I'm really confusing how the android's design/front-end works. A lot of questions are in my mind that, why android not provider easy way/method ( as in html like border-bottom, or in JavaFX) to add borders in textview or something other blah blah. but afraid may be stackoverflow not allowed me ask such question. One question of them which I want to ask here is that what is required to use android:backgroundTint
Because in the EditText it is working as simple.
<EditText
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Edting"
android:backgroundTint="#00FFFF"
/>
but in the TextView to work with it or to add the border I have to use a drawable utility.
<TextView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Edting"
android:backgroundTint="#00FFFF" // not working at all
/>
Somewhere I read that it add the shade to background. But why it is changing the bottom-border. So another question could be the actual purpose of android:backgroundTint
I'm a newbie to Android and I have looked at similar questions asked by others without a definite answer, since, I think, my problem is a bit different.
I'm using a TextView in my program in which there can be links, text, numbers etc. following is the TextView I'm using.
<TextView
android:id="#+id/viewText"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:paddingBottom="5dp"
android:autoLink="web"
android:linksClickable="false"
android:ellipsize="end"
android:maxLines="7" />
Although this is working for normal texts, the ellipsize does not work whenever links are present in the TextView. I'm using "autoLink" in order to show the user that it is link but had set android:linksClickable to false. Right now, I've added the ellipsize from the code but I want to know whether I can do it from the XML file itself.
Thank you.
I'm trying to have an Edit text with keyboard hints and auotcorrection for words (such as when you write a message in whatsapp).
This is my code:
<EditText
android:id="#+id/autoCompleteTextView1"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="0dip"
android:layout_margin="20dp"
android:layout_weight="1"
android:background="#color/white"
android:ems="10"
android:inputType="textCapSentences|textMultiLine|textAutoCorrect|textAutoComplete"
android:scrollHorizontally="false"
android:hint="#string/note_content"
android:textColor="#color/black_text" />
According with the documentation it should work but it doesn't.
I've also tried using the deprecated android:autoText="true".
I need all the functionallity specified in the InputType
Edit:
After some try I discovered that if I set only one attribute without problem but if I set all of what I need nothing work correctly.
Edit 2:
What I want to obtain is something like the Whatsapp editbox where you write your message.
Maybe it has to do with the input type, have you tried single combinations?
Using a combination of textAutoCorrect and textAutoComplete might not always work