Develop Reference

TextView changes size because of margin

When I use Android:margin to position textView half-outside it's parent, it acts weirdly: changes it's own size and text is moving inside textView box. How do I prevent it?
On image: left textView has cropped text at the end, and I don't want that.
<FrameLayout
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_gravity="center"
android:layout_margin="16dp"
android:clipChildren="false">
<TextView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_gravity="center"
android:ellipsize="none"
android:singleLine="true"
android:textColor="#FFFFFF"
android:textSize="22.5dp"
android:layout_marginRight="200dp"
tools:text="0 TEXT VIEWVIEW"
tools:textColor="#000000" />
<...>
</FrameLayout>

FrameLayout always overlaps its Children. For effective placing widgets I suggest to use,
LinearLayout with layout_weight
arrange widgets relative to another widget by using RelativeLayout

You have two problems here:
You are using a FrameLayout. This means that when you keep increasing the margin of child, the view is gonna move out of the parent. Why? Because that's how FrameLayout is designed. Read documentation here: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/FrameLayout.html
FrameLayout is designed to block out an area on the screen to display a single item. Generally, FrameLayout should be used to hold a single child view, because it can be difficult to organize child views in a way that's scalable to different screen sizes without the children overlapping each other.
So instead you could use RelativeLayout or LinearLayout.
The second problem you have is android:singleLine="true". This means that as the text increases in length, it will still be shown in a single line and hence the text will be clipped. So set this to false, or just remove this attribute.
android:singleLine="false"

i think you need to change the line:
android:singleLine="true"
to false.

TextView would not horizontally center

My layout is the following:
<TextView
android:id="#+id/display_city"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_above="#+id/pollenType"
android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:layout_below="#+id/get_pollen_index"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:layout_marginTop="51dp"
android:textSize="40sp" />
As you can tell, Philadelphia, PA is left-aligned. No matter what I change, whether it's centering horizontal and vertical to true, it stays left-aligned.
I have tried changing the layout via the XML and graphical user interface. In the graphical user interface, it indeed is "centered", but it remains non-centered. My layout positions are consistent across all my textviews, so I am unsure as to why this particular TextView is not centered.

Two options...
One: Give the TextView android:layout_width="wrap_content"
Two: Keep the android:layout_width="match_parent" and use android:gravity="center_horizontal"
layout_gravity defines gravity of the view within its parent. Your textView already takes the full width because of match_parent, so centering it horizontally inside its parent does nothing.
gravity, on the other hand, defines the gravity of its contents.

You can center the text using the gravity xml attributes :
android:gravity="center"

Your width equals match_parent and therefore the edges of your TextView already touch the edges of the parent view. You should rather center the text in the TextView with android:gravity="center".

You're telling the display_city TextView to be as wide as the screen.
android:layout_width="match_parent"
However, its text is left aligned by default. That's why it looks this way.
You have two alternatives for what you want:
Keep the width as match_parent and center the text inside the TextView (with gravity).
Set the width to wrap_content and center the View inside its parent (with layout_gravity).

TextView with weight is failing to center text horizontally

I have a view with 2 TextViews in a horizontal LinearLayout, each with a weight of 1.
The second TextView was like this:
<TextView
android:id="#+id/info_button"
style="#style/TextBlue"
android:layout_width="0dp"
android:layout_weight="1"
android:background="#drawable/bg_ten_percent_black_selector"
android:layout_height="#dimen/card_button_height"
android:text="#string/shop_info"
android:gravity="center"
/>
For some reason, the text would not center horizontally when rendered. However, if I performed a touch on it, it would center then.
I have a fix where I wrap it in an extra LinearLayout which is given the weight, and center the TextView within that, but I was wondering why that workaround is effective when this isn't.
Also, what extra information might be needed here, since this method of centered text usually works. The views are inflated and added as ListView header.

What you are looking for is textAlignment in your case:
android:textAlignment="center"

try with center_vertical and center_horizontal in the textview attribute
android:gravity="center_vertical|center_horizontal"

I suspect you mean layout_gravity, not gravity
See: Gravity and layout_gravity on Android

Resizing TextView to fit text (with a nine patch background image)?

I am using a TextView and a 9 patch image as its background for a messaging application in android.
Here's what it looks like:
See how for the blue, it is showing too much on the left? How can I reduce it when it decides that it has to wrap the text?
I tried to access the Width and Height fields on the view in public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent), however they are always zero (ps the TextView is located inside of a ListView and the getView method is inside the adapter for the ListView).
Thank you!
TextView XML:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:orientation="vertical" >
<TextView
android:id="#+id/message_text"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_margin="5sp"
android:background="#drawable/bubble_b"
android:shadowColor="#color/textShadow"
android:shadowDx="1"
android:shadowDy="1"
android:text="Medium Text"
android:textColor="#000000"
android:textSize="16sp"
android:lineSpacingMultiplier="1.1" />
</LinearLayout>
Also, here's a screen of what the nine-patch does for it, so you can see how that works for it:

In the iPad picture you attached, iMessage is setting maxWidth to the half of the screen I guess.
So you can get Screen Width and set maxWidth to half of it for your TextView
This is how you can get screen width and pass it to your TextView,
Display display = ((WindowManager)mContext.getSystemService(Context.WINDOW_SERVICE)).getDefaultDisplay();
yourTextView.setMaxWidth(display.getWidth()/2);
P.S. getWidth method for Display class says deprecated, you can find alternative solution to this. You can get width of your LinearLayout also.

Check the 9-patch image in draw9patch. Check how for to the left you draw the black lines in there. I think the bottom line defines what part to stretch, the top line defines the area for the content.

Overlap views in android?

I have a linearlayout which have a textbox(multiline, nearly 5 lines) and image view. Is it possible to draw a image on textview(overlapping)?
Note: I have to specify the coordinates of the image, which are not static, and may be anywhere above text.
Something like this mockup:

I think it can be achieved using RelativeLayout.
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" >
<TextView
android:id="#+id/Textview"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:layout_marginTop="20dp"
android:text="#string/Text2display"
android:textColor="#EEDCAA" />
<ImageView
android:id="#+id/choose_img"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:layout_marginTop="-46dp"
android:adjustViewBounds="true"
android:contentDescription="#string/description_logo"
android:src="#drawable/user2" />
</RelativeLayout>
By placing the TextView block above the ImageView, it ensures that the image view overlaps the TextView. Now, based on your requirements and position, use the following commands from the link :-
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/RelativeLayout.LayoutParams.html
You can align left right, top and bottom. Use negative values to navigate the ImageView, if ur using align bottom and stuff.. This will make it to overlap. Please let me know if this was helpful
Is there any specific reason for Linear Layout?

You can do this easily using RelativeLayout . You can have an ImageView overlapping TextView Unless there is a specific reason for using LinearLayout .

If you really (really) need to use LinearLayout, you can subclass TextView and override onDraw to draw your image.

In all your xml files, should define the background color for it, it will solve the problem :
Add this android:background="#android:color/black" in to the View tag you defined.