Develop Reference

editing a text file packed in android apk

i am using a properties file to get urls to call web services in my app. Is there a way to edit that through some android activity.
The properties file is in src/resources folder. i am accessing that file using Resourcebundle.

You cant edit any file in application pkg file, however you can have following options to achieve this:
Have Preferences, if when you fetched preferences are null, load preferences with that property file, else let it be as it is.
Edit values in preferences.
If you still insist to use a text file only, copy property file to filesystem, and edit that file whatever you want to edit.

Can localization resources be downloaded in runtime?

I have application with internet access and don't want to store many string.xml files for different languages.
What I want:
Application contains only one string.xml with english strings.
When user launches it - I see user's phone locale, and ask my own server for necessary language file. (resource keys will be the same)
When new resource file comes, all interface should work with new file.
The question is how to change existing or add new string.xml file in runtime?

You obviously cannot change, download or remove strings.xml at runtime
If you want to store locations, you will have to use SQLite storage to store translations.
similar:
How to modify strings.xml file at runtime
run time modification of strings.xml

Now I can see only solution:
Create some "localization proxy" that will return me necessary resource (from string.xml or downloaded resource)
Replace all getString() and getText() to your own method getStringFromLocalization
Override TextView, Button and some other views with custom one and change there init and setText methods.

Overriding the standered resource/language using resource files which are complied time then your scarifying performance over customization. Do it only if u need this.

Android Strings

I wrote a big app with thousands of string in the code.... very bad idea, because now I want to translate each string.... big problem.
Copying all strings to the strings.xml takes a long time.
Eclipse has an option to take all selected strings and put them into messages.properties.
Does this work similiar like strings.xml? When, why all people use strings.xml.
Or should is use eclipse to seperate each string and than I should copy them to string.xml?

All people are using strings.xml because this is the normal way to do it on Android. You don't have to manage the load of the strings, to call any locale function in your script.
You can see the documentation here : http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/resources/index.html
BTW, you can easily transform your eclipse generated file to an strings.xml file after the extraction.

In Eclipse you can use the shortcut keys Alt + Shift A, S to extract an inline string in to the strings.xml file via a popup dialog - might be a bit easier than doing it by hand. And as the others say, yes you should ALWAYS use the strings.xml file so that you only have to look in one place when you want to change a string, instead of having to search through all your code.

Android set String value in String.xml

can anybody help me ?? I want to add String value through coding in string.xml
I am doing this.
String name = getResources().getString(R.string.name);
if(name.lenght() < 1 ){
// getResources().setString(R.string.name);??????????????????????
}
My string.xml is
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<string name="name"></string>
</resources>
does anybody know how i can add value of name in string.xml though coding.
Thank you!!

The resources are pretty much set in stone, so you can't modify them at runtime. If you need to store some new strings, use SharedPreferences or SQLite.

I don't think you want to do that. If you are trying to store a value in a persistent way, take a look at SharedPrefences. Google has a good introduction to it here.

It is not possible to modify the resources of an APK during runtime.

You can't edit those resources directly. You might want to look into sharedpreferences http://developer.android.com/reference/android/content/SharedPreferences.html or creating your own xml file.

You cant edit a resource or add a resource once the code is compiled. I dont know exactly what setResource does, but once your program is compiled, android builds the gen files which designate a certain amount of space for those variables, changing the variable once written would cause overflow or outofbounds errors with memory. If you want persistent values try using the SharedPrefs, SQL or even your own XML stored within the directory of the app, which you could set to only be readable by your app.

Change string.xml at runtime

I have a special request to implement dynamic language packs and themes in Android. This basically means:
to download a zip file containing a file named strings.xml (containing the translation)
replace in the application the file /res/values/strings.xml with the one downloaded
Is this possible? Thank you for your help.

No. Things inside the Res folder are static and you can't recreate the R class in runtime.
Why don't you try using sqlite for your situation?