Develop Reference

Calculate Button dimensions by its caption (text) without creating it

If I know the text for a Button, is there any way to calculate the button dimensions (width and height) before creating the button?
Buttons have the same chrome, paddings, margins, and font. They just vary system by system. So, in theory, button dimensions can be determined by its text.
In case you wonder why I would want to do that, I want to create a dynamic array of horizontal buttons, and if there is not enough space I would to create a menu instead of the excess buttons.

You can try something like this:
Button button = new Button(context);
button.setText("Testing");
button.measure(View.MeasureSpec.UNSPECIFIED, View.MeasureSpec.UNSPECIFIED);
int width = button.getMeasuredWidth();
int height = button.getMeasuredHeight();
As far as I know, if you are creating it from java, it'll give you proper values always.

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.

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"

Changing text of TextView based on its size

Is there any simple way of changing the text of a TextView in order to make it fit the view's size? Note that I do not want to truncate the text or to put an ellipsis, I want to set a different text.
For example instead of Experience: I want to use Exp: if the view is too small(where both those strings are resources).
I know that I could "avoid" this writing a custom .xml layout file for every possible screen size, but I'd like to avoid this if possible. I'm already using some different layout files, but only for situations where the layout needs some radical change to fit the size of the screen. Also in some circumstances I'd like to be able to dynamically set the text of a TextView and this can't be done via xml layout files.
I'm interested only in single-line TextViews and width.
The only way I could think of is to use a custom TextView subclass that uses a fallback text if the original text doesn't fit, but I wonder whether there is a simpler solution and, eventually, how can I reliably compute whether some text fits the TextView size or not.

You can try something like this:
Display display = getWindowManager().getDefaultDisplay();
Point size = new Point();
display.getSize(size);
int screenWidth = size.x;
if( textView.getWidth() > screenWidth ) {
textView.setText("Exp:");
} else {
textView.setText("Experience:");
}
I'm not sure if you need to use getWidth() or getMeasuredWidth() so if it will not work, try second option.

How can avoid text from being cut off on a button?

I am customizing a button in Android changing its background (using a 9patch png file) and changing its font typeface. I put the button in a RelativeLayout since I need precise positioning and dimensioning of this item in a custom layout. I am doing all this programmatically (from creation to setting and display).
I found this question with the same problem, but the solution will not work for me. I used
continueBtn.setPadding(0,0,0,0);
but the graphical output remains the same. More than half the text is cut off in the view.
An excerpt of the code I am using is the following:
Button continueBtn = new Button(getContext());
p = new RelativeLayout.LayoutParams(width, 45);
p.addRule(CENTER_HORIZONTAL);
continueBtn.setLayoutParams(p);
continueBtn.setTypeface(...);
continueBtn.setTextSize(14);
outerLayout.addView(continueBtn);
continueBtn.setPadding(0, 0, 0, 0);
No matter where I put the setPadding method call, things won't change.
What am I doing wrong? Any ideas?

You are setting a constant height for the button of 45 (pixels, I guess). However, apparently the text you are trying to put in it is taller than the amount of space android will let you use. Make your button taller (by changing the LayoutParams) and it will fit without cutting off. Alternately, use a smaller text size so the text will be shorter and fit.