Develop Reference

Android, how to align text at a specific point over an image?

I am learning android programming and setting myself a task to get to grips with layouts. I am trying to create a virtual "Magic 8 Ball".
My aim is to have some random text appear in the white circle where the 8 would normally appear.
How do go about aligning the text so that on different devices the text always appears in the same relative position to the black ball, so is always within the white circle?
Here is an example of what I am trying to do
Here is my code so far
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<android.support.constraint.ConstraintLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_gravity="center_vertical|center_horizontal"
tools:context="uk.co.simoncarr.magic8ball.MainActivity">
<TextView
android:id="#+id/txtTitle"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="49dp"
android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
android:text="#string/title"
android:textSize="36sp"
tools:layout_editor_absoluteX="107dp"
tools:layout_editor_absoluteY="10dp" />
<RelativeLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<ImageView
android:id="#+id/img8Ball"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
android:layout_alignParentStart="true"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:foregroundGravity="center_vertical|center_horizontal"
app:srcCompat="#drawable/magic8ball"
tools:layout_editor_absoluteX="0dp"
tools:layout_editor_absoluteY="0dp" />
<TextView
android:id="#+id/txtMessage"
android:layout_width="130dp"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentEnd="true"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:layout_marginEnd="111dp"
android:layout_marginRight="111dp"
android:layout_marginTop="296dp"
android:text="The Anser is Yes"
android:textAlignment="center"
android:textSize="18sp"
tools:layout_editor_absoluteX="0dp"
tools:layout_editor_absoluteY="447dp" />
</RelativeLayout>
</android.support.constraint.ConstraintLayout>

Before answering the question I should comment on the fact that the elements inside you ConstraintLayout are not constrained in any way so when you run the app they will not keep the positions you have given them in the layout editor. You should fix this before doing anything else.
One approach you could look at could be to have 2 circle drawables, one with a black background and one with a white one and place one on top of the other. This way you could use the relatively new "Circular Positioning" feature in ConstraintLayout as outlined in this post. This will give you a lot of flexibility and power over choosing the positioning of the white circle in relation to the black.

Relativelayout position view between two views

so I'm currently working on an app on Android, and I got stuck on a specific problem regarding the RelativeLayout, which I can't find a way to solve.
I have in the layout three views as follows: TextView, Textview and ImageView (laid horizontally), here is a screenshot of the ios counterpart:
the Textview at the middle should stick to the first one, until he gets to the Imageview, when he does, he keeps his minimum size (wrap content), while the first Textview truncate.
On IOS I setted priorities to the constraint to accomplish this, but I can't figure out how to solve this on Android.
Here what I tried:
<android.support.percent.PercentRelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
android:background="#drawable/daily_movie_title_box">
<TextView
android:id="#+id/daily_header_textview"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:padding="15dp"
android:text="New Text aawi oa ioawfwi"
android:textSize="16sp"
android:textStyle="bold"
android:textColor="#color/white"
android:lines="1"
android:singleLine="true"
android:layout_alignParentStart="true"
/>
<TextView
android:id="#+id/duration_text"
android:text="138 mins"
android:layout_width="100dp"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:textSize="13sp"
android:textColor="#color/white"
android:lines="1"
android:layout_alignBaseline="#id/daily_header_textview"
android:layout_toStartOf="#+id/certification_icon"
android:layout_toEndOf="#id/daily_header_textview"
/>
<ImageView
android:id="#id/certification_icon"
android:layout_width="0dp"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentEnd="true"
android:src="#drawable/uk12a"
android:layout_alignBottom="#id/daily_header_textview"
app:layout_aspectRatio="100%"/>
</android.support.percent.PercentRelativeLayout>
Which resulted in this (which is what I want):
But when I increase the first Textview text it's not behaving as I desire...
Is it possible to achieve the behaviour I want in Android (keep the middle Textview wrap content, and truncate the first one if needed)?
I will post an update if I find a solution eventually, just wanted to see if anyone can find an easy way to achieve this behaviour, as I suspect there is.
Thanks.

From my understanding, you want the first TextView to be as large as possible, without adding space after the text if the text is too small. The second TextView should only wrap_content, but it should fill the rest of the parent layout when the row doesn't. The ImageView is set to wrap_content.
I tested it with this layout:
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<TableLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:shrinkColumns="0"
android:stretchColumns="1">
<TableRow>
<TextView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:singleLine="true"
android:text="Shrinking text dddddddddddddddddddddd"/>
<TextView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Midle column"/>
<ImageView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:src="#mipmap/ic_launcher"/>
</TableRow>
</TableLayout>
</LinearLayout>
The only problem is that if the second column has a incredibly large text, it will push the other views out of the parent. But in your case, I don't think that will be a problem. Otherwise, I think it does the job.

These are some suggested solutions:
You can use LinearLayout with horizontal orientation and weight for each component (TextViews and ImageView).
You can set the minimum and maximum text length for the second TextView.
But i prefer to apply the first solution. You can assign a weight for each component ( amount of space on the screen ) using:
android:layout_height

Android TextView with maxwidth

I have an TextView with a variable width, but maximum is 250dp. But somehow Android sets it always to maxwidth.
With a shorter text and without maxwidth it works, but then the text is long enough that the field exceeds the screen width, it overlaps the arrow.
I already tried this two variants, which give the same result as in the picture
<TextView
android:id="#+id/bubbleText"
style="#style/MarkerText"
android:maxWidth="250dp"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background="#FF0000"
android:layout_marginEnd="#dimen/defaultSpacing" />
<TextView
android:id="#+id/bubbleText"
style="#style/MarkerText"
android:layout_width="0dp"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_marginEnd="#dimen/defaultSpacing"
android:layout_weight="1"
android:background="#FF0000"
android:maxWidth="250dp"
android:singleLine="false" />
I want it to look like this:
Additional infos:
Complete XML
<LinearLayout
android:id="#+id/markerTextBubble"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:gravity="center"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:visibility="invisible" >
<LinearLayout
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background="#drawable/marker_text_background" >
<LinearLayout
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:orientation="horizontal"
android:paddingBottom="#dimen/tinySpacing"
android:paddingEnd="#dimen/defaultSpacing"
android:paddingStart="#dimen/defaultSpacing"
android:paddingTop="#dimen/tinySpacing" >
<TextView
android:id="#+id/bubbleText"
style="#style/MarkerText"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_marginEnd="#dimen/defaultSpacing"
android:background="#FF0000"
android:maxWidth="250dp" />
<mypackage.IconTextView
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
style="#style/MarkerTextIcon"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:gravity="center"
android:text="#string/icon_map_arrow" />
</LinearLayout>
</LinearLayout>
<ImageView
android:layout_width="20dp"
android:layout_height="20dp"
android:layout_marginBottom="-5dp"
android:layout_marginTop="-1dp"
android:src="#drawable/marker_text_background_rectangle" />
</LinearLayout>
<style name="MarkerText" parent="android:Widget.Holo.Light.TextView">
<item name="android:textColor">#color/myWhite</item>
<item name="android:textSize">#dimen/markerTextSize</item>
</style>
<dimen name="markerTextSize">22sp</dimen>
The problem occurs in this independent snippet too:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<TextView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background="#FF0000"
android:maxWidth="250dp"
android:text="1. Willkommen bei meiner APP"
android:textSize="22sp" />

Not 100% sure, but I think the problem is that it is a multi-line text.
Does the view behave as expected when the text is shorter? i.e. "1. Welcome"
What I think happens is the following:
The view tries to make it on one line, then it expands until its maximum width, given that is not enough for rendering, makes it a multi-line, but does not stretch the view.
You could try with "1. Willkommen bei\nmeiner APP" to see if it shows the expected behaviour.
Hope this helps.

Using the maxWidth won't be causing it to stretch.
It would most likely be in your code for:
android:layout_marginEnd="#dimen/defaultSpacing"
and check any dimensions:
style="#style/MarkerText"
As setting the maxWidth alone will not cause this.
There must be some figure that is putting padding between your text and the right side textview, or possibly some peculiar margin mess up.
Using maxWidth should not force it out to the right like that, as I showed you in the image, I think it's the nested layouts and there is a lot of coding defining margins and padding within your layouts and elements, this could be forcing your texview to move to the right, and the text will automatically wrap, as it cannot fit in the first row, but the textview itself is still being pushed to the right.

Placing text view over an image view using FrameLayout

Below is how I have designed my xml. Now what I am trying to fit a textview inside the white box shown below. But am being restricted by FrameLayout (at least I think so) that I need to hard code values to make the text view fit in the middle or some where inside the white box. I cannot use Relative or other layouts for this purpose as I have understood by my trials as this whole is a single image.
Here is my layout,
<FrameLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:visibility="visible" android:layout_marginTop="60dip"
android:layout_gravity="center" android:id="#+id/xxx">
<ImageView android:id="#+id/calloutquizImage"
android:background="#drawable/callout" android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:scaleType="fitCenter" />
<ImageView android:id="#+id/triviaImage"
android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignTop="#+id/calloutquizImage" android:layout_gravity="left"
android:src="#drawable/trivia" android:background="#drawable/trivia"
android:layout_marginTop="50dip" android:layout_marginLeft="85dip"></ImageView>
<TextView android:text="TextView" android:id="#+id/triviAnswerText"
android:layout_marginTop="125dip" android:layout_marginLeft="85dip"
android:layout_gravity="left" android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:textColor="#000000"
android:typeface="sans"></TextView>
<ImageButton android:id="#+id/triviaanswercloseButton"
android:src="#drawable/closebtn" android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:background="#drawable/closebtn"
android:layout_marginRight="8dip" android:layout_marginTop="43dip"
android:layout_gravity="right" android:onClick="triviaanswerClose"></ImageButton>
<ImageView android:id="#+id/buttontoclose"
android:layout_gravity="left"
android:visibility="visible" android:onClick="triviaanswerClose"
android:layout_marginTop="50dip" android:layout_marginLeft="75dip"
android:layout_width="230dip" android:layout_height="170dip"></ImageView>
</FrameLayout>
Because of this the text view looks in different positions in various handsets.
Any guesses what can be done for this instead?
Below is my image :

I think you are not doing the right thing. If you want a text to appear inside a white box (or even resize it, if there is to many text to fit to it) - you can still avoid any layouts ad do it with only one TextView.
Please have a look what is NinePatch image in Android:
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/graphics/NinePatch.html
http://developer.android.com/tools/help/draw9patch.html - drawing tools
So basically you will need only 1 textView and your image, properly converted to 9-patch with 2nd link. (Basically - just add a few black pixels on image border).
No just set this 9-patch as a background of textView. It will place text right where you need, and will shrink white box if you'll define so in 9-patch.
UPD:
Please find the resulting screenshot:
As you can see, textView not handles
WhiteBox" itself, filling it with text and resizing the box if necessary.
Here is how to make it work:
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<TextView
android:id="#+id/first"
android:background="#drawable/back"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Manymanymany text
Manymanymany text
Manymanymany text
Manymanymany text
Manymanymany text
Manymanymany text" />
<TextView
android:layout_below="#+id/first"
android:background="#drawable/back"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Not so many text" />
</RelativeLayout>
And here is your image, converted to 9patch. Just place it to "drawable/" folder. Note: it MUST have "back.9.png" name.
For details of how 9patch works you can check links above. The main idea: by making black dots on left and top border - you specify which part of the image will be stretched when image must be upscaled. By making dots on right/bottom side you tell the View where to place the content. In our case content is a text of the TextView.
Hope it helps, good luck

I think you can use a RelativeLayout within the FrameLayout for the ImageView and the TextView, and by using the parameters, you can navigate the TextView to the white box. Refer to the LayoutParams documentation for details.
for eg. you can add the ImageView block first and then the TextView, so that the TextView will lay over the ImageView, and by using align bottom, and specifying top margin with a negative value, you can make the TextView go over the image. Or rather, if you are using eclipse, you can directly move the text view in the graphic layout.
<FrameLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:id="#+id/xxx"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_gravity="center"
android:layout_marginTop="0dp"
android:visibility="visible" >
<RelativeLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_margintop="0dp" >
<ImageView
android:id="#+id/imageView1"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:src="#drawable/user2" />
<TextView
android:id="#+id/Textviewtitle"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="#string/hello_world"
android:layout_below="#+id/imageView1"
android:layout_marginTop="-10dp"
app:context=".TestActivity" />
</RelativeLayout>
</FrameLayout>
Similar to above, you can specify margin left and right to properly position your TextView as you want. Check with graphic layout for feedback to know the correct position.
Please reply if this helped.
Use your images and values for the height and width. I just tried for testing.

How do I vertically align an item within a list using relative layout?

I am using a list view in Android 1.5 to show a list of images and text next to the image. I am trying to vertically center the text but the text is at the top of the row instead of centered. Below is my layout:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:id="#+id/row"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:padding="10dip">
<ImageView android:id="#+id/item_image" android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:paddingRight="10dip"
android:src="#drawable/default_image" android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:gravity="center_vertical"/>
<TextView android:id="#+id/item_title"
android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_toRightOf="#id/item_image"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:gravity="center_vertical"
/>
</RelativeLayout>
It seems strange that I need to set alignParentTop="true" when I'm trying to vertically center the text, but if I don't the text does not even show up. What am I doing wrong?

EDIT following the comments:
It turns out making this work with RelativeLayout isn't easy. At the bottom of the answer I've included a RelativeLayout that gives the effect wanted, but only until it's included in a ListView. After that, the same problems as described in the question occurred. This was fixed by instead using LinearLayout(s).
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:paddingLeft="10dp"
android:orientation="horizontal">
<ImageView android:id="#+id/pickImageImage"
android:layout_width="100dp"
android:layout_height="80dp"
android:background="#drawable/icon"
android:scaleType="fitXY"
android:layout_marginRight="10dp"/>
<TextView android:id="#+id/pickImageText"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:gravity="left|center_vertical"
android:text="I'm the text"/>
</LinearLayout>
If you want to have two text boxes, you can nest a second orientation="vertical" and LinearLayout after the ImageView and then put the text boxes in there.
This works, but I have to admit I don't know why the RelativeLayouts didn't. For example, this blog post by Romain Guy specifically says that the RelativeLayout should. When I tried it, I never got it to quite work; admittedly I didn't do it exactly as he did, but my only changes were with some attributes of the TextViews, which shouldn't have made that much of a difference.
Here's the original answer:
I think you're confusing Android with all those somewhat contradictory instructions in RelativeLayout. I reformatted your thing to this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:id="#+id/row"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:padding="10dip">
<ImageView android:id="#+id/item_image"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:paddingRight="10dip"
android:src="#drawable/icon"
android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"/>
<TextView android:id="#+id/item_title"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_toRightOf="#id/item_image"
android:layout_centerVertical="true"
android:text="Blah!"/>
</RelativeLayout>
And that works fine. I removed many of your redundant android:layout_alignParentxxx because they weren't necessary. This view now comes up with the picture in the top left corner and the text vertically centered next to it. If you want the picture vertically centered as well, then you can't have the RelativeLayout be on android:layout_height="wrap_content" because it's trying to make itself no taller than the height of the picture. You'd have to specify a height, e.g. 80dp, and then set the ImageView to a fixed height like 60dp with android:scaleType="fitXY" to make it scale down to fit properly.

Was stuck on a similar issue for a while, but found this from CommonsWare:
"When you inflate the layout, use inflate(R.layout.whatever, parent, false), where parent is the ListView."
Works but only when you set the height of the row to a specific value (ie you can't use wrap_content).

Baseline directive would do it, but ImageView simply does not support baseline alignment as of today. You can work around this by creating a subclass of ImageView, override the getBaseline() method and return the height of the image.