Android - EditText Control

A EditText is an overlay over TextView that configures itself to be editable. It is the predefined subclass of
TextView that includes rich editing capabilities.

Styles of edit text

EditText Attributes
Following are the important attributes related to EditText control. You can check Android official documentation for
complete list of attributes and related methods which you can use to change these attributes are run time.
Inherited from android.widget.TextView Class −

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Sr.No Attribute & Description

1
android:autoText

If set, specifies that this TextView has a textual input method and automatically corrects some common
spelling errors.

2
android:drawableBottom
This is the drawable to be drawn below the text.

3
android:drawableRight

This is the drawable to be drawn to the right of the text.

4
android:editable

If set, specifies that this TextView has an input method.

5
android:text

This is the Text to display.

Inherited from android.view.View Class −

Sr.No Attribute & Description

1
android:background

This is a drawable to use as the background.

2
android:contentDescription

This defines text that briefly describes content of the view.

3
android:id
This supplies an identifier name for this view.

4
android:onClick

This is the name of the method in this View's context to invoke when the view is clicked.

5 android:visibility

This controls the initial visibility of the view.

Example

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This example will take you through simple steps to show how to create your own Android application using Linear
Layout and EditText.

Step Description

1 You will use Android studio IDE to create an Android application and name it as demo under a package
com.example.demo as explained in the Hello World Example chapter.

2 Modify src/MainActivity.java file to add a click event.

3 Modify the default content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file to include Android UI control.

4 Define required necessary string constants in res/values/strings.xml file

5 Run the application to launch Android emulator and verify the result of the changes done in the application.

Following is the content of the modified main activity file src/com.example.demo/MainActivity.java. This file can
include each of the fundamental lifecycle methods.

package com.example.demo;

import android.os.Bundle;
import android.app.Activity;

import android.view.View;
import android.view.View.OnClickListener;

import android.widget.Button;
import android.widget.EditText;
import android.widget.Toast;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

EditText eText;
Button btn;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
eText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.edittext);
btn = (Button) findViewById(R.id.button);
btn.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View v) {
String str = eText.getText().toString();
Toast msg = Toast.makeText(getBaseContext(),str,Toast.LENGTH_LONG);
msg.show();
}
});
}
}

Following will be the content of res/layout/activity_main.xml file −

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
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 android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
tools:context=".MainActivity" >

<TextView
android:id="@+id/textView1"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:layout_marginLeft="14dp"
android:layout_marginTop="18dp"
android:text="@string/example_edittext" />

<Button
android:id="@+id/button"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignLeft="@+id/textView1"
android:layout_below="@+id/textView1"
android:layout_marginTop="130dp"
android:text="@string/show_the_text" />

<EditText
android:id="@+id/edittext"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_alignLeft="@+id/button"
android:layout_below="@+id/textView1"
android:layout_marginTop="61dp"
android:ems="10"
android:text="@string/enter_text" android:inputType="text" />

</RelativeLayout>

Following will be the content of res/values/strings.xml to define these new constants −

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<resources>
<string name="app_name">demo</string>
<string name="example_edittext">Example showing EditText</string>
<string name="show_the_text">Show the Text</string>
<string name="enter_text">text changes</string>
</resources>

Following is the default content of AndroidManifest.xml −

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="com.example.demo" >

<application
android:allowBackup="true"
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 android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
android:label="@string/app_name"
android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >

<activity
android:name="com.example.demo.MainActivity"
android:label="@string/app_name" >

<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
</intent-filter>

</activity>
</application>

</manifest>

Let's try to run your demo application. I assume you had created your AVD while doing environment setup. To run

the app from Android studio, open one of your project's activity files and click Run icon from the toolbar.
Android Studio installs the app on your AVD and starts it and if everything is fine with your setup and application, it
will display following Emulator window −

Exercise

I will recommend to try above example with different attributes of EditText in Layout XML file as well at
programming time to have different look and feel of the EditText. Try to make it editable, change to font color, font
family, width, textSize etc and see the result. You can also try above example with multiple EditText controls in
one activity.
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