Develop Reference

Android: Can't make small fontsize on programmatic textviews

I'm using the following method which programatically creates a linearlayout and populates it with two textviews, adds text and then turns it into a drawable that I later use a layer above a shape. However, I've noticed that I can't create a small fontsize - it seems stuck at a minimum size which is relatively.. large, and anything that I specify below that value just seems to make it look increasingly blurry (but still the same size). What could be the reason for this?
This behavior occurs whether or not I used TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_SP.
Edit: This size stays the same even if I specify something ridiculous like:
.setTextSize(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_SP, 60);
it doesn't get any bigger - it just gets "sharper".
Edit 2: If I specify the top textview as having a very large size, then the smaller I set the second textview, the smaller it becomes - as a ratio (for example, if I set the top at 100 and the bottom at 50 it looks exactly the same as the top at 10 and the bottom at 5). However, in no way can I reduce the size of the top textview.
Edit 3: If I remove one of the textviews, and leave only the other one as a single textview in the layout - I can't change the size at all. I can only make it more or less blurry depending how low I set the number but it will always appear the exact same size on screen.
private Drawable createTextLayer() {
LinearLayout newLinearLayout = new LinearLayout(getContext());
newLinearLayout.setOrientation(LinearLayout.VERTICAL);
newLinearLayout.setGravity(Gravity.CENTER);
LinearLayout.LayoutParams layoutParams = new LinearLayout.LayoutParams(LinearLayout.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT, LinearLayout.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT);
newLinearLayout.setBackgroundColor(getColor(R.color.somecolor));
newLinearLayout.setLayoutParams(layoutParams);
TextView headlinetv = new TextView(getContext());
TextView bodytv = new TextView(getContext());
headlinetv.setText(headlineText);
headlinetv.setTextSize(7);
headlinetv.setGravity(Gravity.CENTER);
bodytv.setText(bodyText);
bodytv.setTextSize(6);
bodytv.setGravity(Gravity.CENTER);
newLinearLayout.addView(headlinetv);
newLinearLayout.addView(bodytv);
newLinearLayout.setDrawingCacheEnabled(true);
newLinearLayout.measure(MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(0, MeasureSpec.UNSPECIFIED),
MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(0, MeasureSpec.UNSPECIFIED));
newLinearLayout.layout(0, 0, newLinearLayout.getMeasuredWidth(), newLinearLayout.getMeasuredHeight());
newLinearLayout.buildDrawingCache(true);
Bitmap b = Bitmap.createBitmap(newLinearLayout.getDrawingCache());
newLinearLayout.setDrawingCacheEnabled(false);
return new BitmapDrawable(getResources(), b);
}

Change your code to:
textView.setTextSize(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_SP, 7);
Change the font size of 7 to any font size as you wish.

This turned out to be quite tricky and took me several hours to solve, but I'm posting the answer for anyone else who ends up in a similar situation.
The cause:
The entire drawable layer was the uppermost layer above a shape, and was therefore stretched to the size of the shape no matter what. In order to stretch it to the size of the shape, the largest view was stretched (essentially, the longest textview) and therefore couldn't be enlarged or reduced in size.
The solution:
I defined two more textviews, gave them the longest string by 1 character, and made the textcolor transparent. I would have preferred to give them blank space as content but android refused to measure a textview containing whitespace, so it had to be actual text. I put one textview at the top and one at the bottom and thus the visible text appears perfectly centered and in the correct font size.
Edit:
There turns out to be a better way of doing this. Define the textview as the same size as the shape on which it sits as a layer and define padding around the textview (play around with it to find the minimal amount of padding needed). If you have several textviews, divide the size of the shape by the number of textviews and give each one a fraction.

Set background behind image

I got a picture that I want to use.
I set it as following:
ImageView menu = new ImageView(this);
menu.setLayoutParams(new RelativeLayout.LayoutParams(
RelativeLayout.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT,
RelativeLayout.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT));
menu.setImageResource(R.drawable.menu);
They annoying thing is that I get white pixels on the sides of it cause I want to keep the aspect of the pic.
I can stretch the image by using menu.setScaleType(ScaleType.FIT_XY); but that will make the person on it look really fat. The picture is dark and the pixels are white so they do show quite well. :/
Is there I way I can first apply black color and then the image above that color?

To set a background color to any view on android you can use android:background attribute in layout xml or by calling setBackgroundColor(int id) in java code.
But if you really want just to set the image in bounds you can give a try to android:scaletype="centerCrop"

Using set BackgroundColor will also remove any padding, borders and what not attached to the object.
If that is the result you want, that is a reasonable approach.
If blasting the objects current style will cause problems, I would look to use CSS to set the background color and change the css styles through code if things are happening after page load.
Consider using a border around the image that is colored the way you want to hide what is underneath?

Android - Button height not decreasing to wrap text

I set the button's height via XML. Suppose it to be X
<Button
android:layout_height="wrap_contnet"
android:textSize = " <X> dp"
....
....
/>
If I set X to greater than 15 dp, the button's height grows to fit the text. But when I set it to something lower like 2dp, the button's height doesn't change and I can see a thick border around it as shown below:-
As shown above, text size is so small but still height doesn't decrease!
How can I force it to be of appropriate height?
Thanx in advance!

Font size does not depend on button height. If you set it too small to fit the text, you will get the result you observe
EDIT
wrap_content would usually do the trick, however Button class sets some layout parameters like margin, background so it takes more space. You may get rid of Button and use i.e. TextView class, styled by hand to match your design. onClickListener will work perfectly fine with it and you will get result you want and full control over your button
EDIT 2
As this is bit related - there's AutoFitTextView widget on Github that deals with automatic text size scalling: https://github.com/grantland/android-autofittextview

Just Set android:minHeight="xxdp"

Android Game development - Imageview automatically shrinks at screen edge

I have a bunch of dynamically created ImageViews representing different objects in a game, which is working fine. However if any Image reaches the edge of the screen, it shrinks. Looks like android is attempting to create a smooth transition, but this is not wanted.
I found another thread with the same issue here: Animation Drawable gets automatically shrinks at the corners ?, however his solution does not work for me, it only enhances the issue as it starts shrinking once the margin hits the screen edge.
This is my code:
final LayoutParams _updated_params = new LayoutParams(LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT);
_updated_params.setMargins((int)m_x, (int)m_y, 0, 0);
m_image.setLayoutParams(_updated_params);</code>
Where m_x/m_y is the absolute position of the image and m_image is an ImageView instance.
Does anyone know how I can turn off this automatic resizing?

Add setScaleType
m_image.setScaleType(ScaleType.MATRIX);

Use setScaleType
m_image.setScaleType(ScaleType.FIT_XY);

Android: scaling a button with a background image

I'm probably just being daft but my Google searches are not working out well.
I have a bunch of buttons i add in code that all have dynamic text. I've set a background image for each of these buttons since the default greybutton doesn't work well for my application.
This works perfectly and when the text size (or content) changes, the button automatically grows to accommodate the expanded text. What doesn't work is that I'd like the button to scale proportionally - i.e. if the background image is round, i'd like it to stay round rather than oval as the button gets bigger.
With an imagebutton, there is a property "Adjust view bounds" that does exactly this but I cant put text on an imagebutton. Is there something equivalent for a regular button?
or am I going about this wrong?
i also tried setting the width of the button in code, but I can't seem to determine the new height (button.getHeight() returns 0)

ok i found one way to do it...
I modified the patch-9 to have its expandable area be the maximum on both axis.
then used the DisplayMetrics like this:
DisplayMetrics metrics = new DisplayMetrics();
getWindowManager().getDefaultDisplay().getMetrics(metrics);
buttonView.setGravity(Gravity.CENTER);
int buttonSize=(int) Math.floor(metrics.density*1.6*fontSize);
buttonView.setWidth(buttonSize);
buttonView.setHeight(buttonSize);
where fontSize is the size of the font in DIP that i'm placing on each button. In this case, since I only have a single letter on each button, i don't need to worry about the text length, but one could obviously tweak this to handle that situation as well.