Android Text Controls

Text controls include:

1. TextView.

2. EditText

3. AutoCompleteEditText

4. MultiCompleteTextView

TextView
The TextView represent an un-editable text. It resembles the Label control in C# or ASP.NET but it has an interesting feature which is the ability to highlight the text if its is an URL, an e-mail or a phone number so that when the user clicks on the textview the default intent whether it is the web browser or the dialer launches

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    >
<TextView  
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
    android:text="Visit Http://www.android-pro.blogspot.com"
    android:autoLink="web"
    android:id="@+id/txtURL"
    />
    
    <TextView  
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
    android:text="Dial 1 650-253-0000"
    android:autoLink="all"
    />
</LinearLayout>

you can see that the TextViews containing URLs or Phone numbers are highlighted, and when the user presses on them the default intent (the browser or the dialer launches)


this is done by using the property android:autoLink which can have the values:

web, email ,phone, map

or

All

this can be achieved from code by using the following code:

TextView txtURL=(TextView)findViewById(R.id.txtURL);
Linkify.addLinks(txtURL, Linkify.ALL);

EditText
The EditText is a subclass of the TextView it is like the TextBox in C#. it enables users to edit text.


We can use the autoText property to make the EditText to correct the common spelling mistakes.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    >
<EditText
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:autoText="true"

/>
</LinearLayout>

We can use the capitalize property to make the text capitalized like this:

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    >

<EditText
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:capitalize="characters"

/>
<EditText
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:capitalize="none"
/>
<EditText
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:capitalize="words"
/>
</LinearLayout>

we can use the password property to make the control accepts phone numbers input:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    >

<EditText
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:password="true"

/>

</LinearLayout>

We can enforce the Control to wrap all the text in a single line by setting android:singleLine property to true.

AutoCompleteTextView
The autoCompleteTextView is an EditText with auto complete functionality. The auto complete functionality can be achieved by attaching an Adapter with the auto complete values to the control like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    >

<AutoCompleteTextView
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:id="@+id/act"

/>

</LinearLayout>

Then attach the adapter from the code like this:

AutoCompleteTextView act=(AutoCompleteTextView)findViewById(R.id.act);
        ArrayAdapter arr=new ArrayAdapter(this,android.R.layout.simple_dropdown_item_1line,new String []{"Hello","Hi","Alloha"});
        act.setAdapter(arr);

in a search program for example you can obtain the auto complete words from a web service and populate the adapter with these words.

MultiAutoCompleteTextView

The AutoCompleteTextView can suggest auto complete for the entire text in the control, meaning that if you type more than one word it would try to match the whole sentence not the single words.
The MultiAutoCompleteTextView works the same way as the AutoCompleteTextView except you can add a Tokenizer that parses the text and allows you to suggest where to start suggesting words like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    >

<MultiAutoCompleteTextView 
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:id="@+id/act"

/>

</LinearLayout>

then from code:

MultiAutoCompleteTextView mact=(MultiAutoCompleteTextView)findViewById(R.id.act);
        ArrayAdapter arr=new ArrayAdapter(this,android.R.layout.simple_dropdown_item_1line,new String []{"Hello","Hi","Alloha"});
        mact.setAdapter(arr);
        mact.setTokenizer(new MultiAutoCompleteTextView.CommaTokenizer());

The tokenizer tells the control to start suggesting for words separated by a comma.