Android: Create a toggle button with image and no text

Question

is it possible to create a toggle button in Android that has an image but no text? Ideally it would look like this:

Ive seen similar posts where the answer was to change the background but i want to preserve the Holo Light layout and just swap the text with an image.

I need to be able to programaticallly change the image source,

Any ideas how i would make this?

If this cant be done, is there a way i can make a normal button toggle on and off?

Answer 1

1. Can I replace the toggle text with an image

   No, we can not, although we can hide the text by overiding the default style of the toggle button, but still that won't give us a toggle button you want as we can't replace the text with an image.

2. How can I make a normal toggle button

   Create a file ic_toggle in your res/drawable folder

   <selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">      <item android:state_checked="false"           android:drawable="@drawable/ic_slide_switch_off" />      <item android:state_checked="true"           android:drawable="@drawable/ic_slide_switch_on" />  </selector> 

   Here @drawable/ic_slide_switch_on & @drawable/ic_slide_switch_off are images you create.

   Then create another file in the same folder, name it ic_toggle_bg

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">      <item android:id="@+android:id/background"             android:drawable="@android:color/transparent" />      <item android:id="@+android:id/toggle"           android:drawable="@drawable/ic_toggle" />  </layer-list> 

   Now add to your custom theme, (if you do not have one create a styles.xml file in your res/values/folder)

   <style name="Widget.Button.Toggle" parent="android:Widget">    <item name="android:background">@drawable/ic_toggle_bg</item>    <item name="android:disabledAlpha">?android:attr/disabledAlpha</item> </style>  <style name="toggleButton"  parent="@android:Theme.Black">    <item name="android:buttonStyleToggle">@style/Widget.Button.Toggle</item>    <item name="android:textOn"></item>    <item name="android:textOff"></item> </style> 

   This creates a custom toggle button for you.

3. How to use it

   Use the custom style and background in your view.

     <ToggleButton         android:id="@+id/toggleButton"         android:layout_width="wrap_content"         android:layout_height="match_parent"         android:layout_gravity="right"         style="@style/toggleButton"         android:background="@drawable/ic_toggle_bg"/> 

Answer 2

ToggleButton inherits from TextView so you can set drawables to be displayed at the 4 borders of the text. You can use that to display the icon you want on top of the text and hide the actual text

<ToggleButton     android:id="@+id/toggleButton1"     android:layout_width="wrap_content"     android:layout_height="wrap_content"     android:drawableTop="@android:drawable/ic_menu_info_details"     android:gravity="center"     android:textOff=""     android:textOn=""     android:textSize="0dp" /> 

The result compared to regular ToggleButton looks like

The seconds option is to use an ImageSpan to actually replace the text with an image. Looks slightly better since the icon is at the correct position but can't be done with layout xml directly.

You create a plain ToggleButton

<ToggleButton     android:id="@+id/toggleButton3"     android:layout_width="wrap_content"     android:layout_height="wrap_content"     android:checked="false" /> 

Then set the "text" programmatially

ToggleButton button = (ToggleButton) findViewById(R.id.toggleButton3); ImageSpan imageSpan = new ImageSpan(this, android.R.drawable.ic_menu_info_details); SpannableString content = new SpannableString("X"); content.setSpan(imageSpan, 0, 1, Spanned.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE); button.setText(content); button.setTextOn(content); button.setTextOff(content); 

The result here in the middle - icon is placed slightly lower since it takes the place of the text.