Accessing Android views on nested layouts

Question

I have trouble accessing Views from a layout that is included in another layout. Please take a look at this picture:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3473245/layout_includes.png

How do I access the 4 text views programmatically? Its probably something really simple that I'm missing. Thank you very much!

Answer 1

You can do as follows:

main.xml

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

    <include android:id="@+id/item_base_lang" layout="@layout/dictionary_list_item" />
    <include android:id="@+id/item_learn_lang" layout="@layout/dictionary_list_item" />
</LinearLayout>

dictionary_list_item.xml

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

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/dictionary_list_item_text_header"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/dictionary_list_item_text_content"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

</LinearLayout>

To set the text programmatically:

((TextView)findViewById(R.id.item_base_lang).findViewById(R.id.dictionary_list_item_text_header)).setText("item_base_lang_header");
((TextView)findViewById(R.id.item_base_lang).findViewById(R.id.dictionary_list_item_text_content)).setText("item_base_lang_content");
((TextView)findViewById(R.id.item_learn_lang).findViewById(R.id.dictionary_list_item_text_header)).setText("item_learn_lang_header");
((TextView)findViewById(R.id.item_learn_lang).findViewById(R.id.dictionary_list_item_text_content)).setText("item_learn_lang_content");

This Android wiki page shows how to use reusable UI components with XML layouts, but it doesn't show how to access nested reusable components from code.

Although it is fairly straightforward, it might be not so clear for those who are pretty new to Android Views.