Background drawables define view size

Question

For the sake of clarity, this question has been edited significantly.

Let's say I have a .png resource of 100x100px:

I want to use that image as a background for my TextViews, which size is determined by its content, which is variable at runtime. Especially, I want that image to tile when the TextView size is larger than 100x100px, and I want it to be cropped when the TextView is smaller than 100x100px.

The latter seems to be a difficult one.

Example code

I have a drawable resource bg_tile.xml:

<bitmap xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:src="@drawable/bg"
    android:tileMode="repeat" />

My layout file:

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

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_margin="8dp"
        android:background="@drawable/bg_tile"
        android:text="Short text"
        android:textSize="20sp" />

    <TextView android:layout_margin="8dp"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:background="@drawable/bg_tile"
        android:text="Long text long text long text long text long text long text long text long text long textlong text long text long text long text long text long text long text long text long textlong text long text long text long text long text long text long text long text long text "
        android:textSize="20sp" />

</LinearLayout>

What's happening

Here is a screenshot of the result of this code, and one of what I would expect / what I want:

As you can see, the tiling part works, and the bottom tile is being cut off. However, when the TextView is smaller than the background, the TextView takes the size of the background.

Suggested solutions

• android:gravity="clip_vertical|clip_horizontal" - This doesn't work, even without tilemode.
• Use match_parent as layout params - Not an option.
• Setting a fixed height - There is no way of telling how long the content of the TextView will be, and with that its size.

How can I achieve my goal?

Answer 1

I have not tried this myself, but you could try this idea/hack/workaround:

The minimum height/width of a View (TextView) is determined by its background drawable (amongst other things). It uses the background Drawable's getMinimumHeight() and getMinimumWidth() to determine the View's minimum height and width.

It looks like you want the View's minimum height and width to be 0 (excluding padding) and the View's width/height should be based only on the View's content (in your case, the TextView's text).

Try this in the onCreate of your Activity or the onCreateView of your Fragment, where you get a hold of the TextView you are trying to 'fix'. Let's call this TextView 'tv':

TextView tv; 
...
...
tv = (TextView)...findViewById(...);
....

// Swap the 'standard' bitmap background with one that has no minimum width/height.
BitmapDrawable background = (BitmapDrawable)tv.getBackground(); // assuming you have bg_tile as background.
BitmapDrawable newBackground = new BitmapDrawable(background.getBitmap) {
    @Override
    public int getMinimumWidth() {
        return 0;
    }

    @Override
    public int getMinimumHeight() {
        return 0;
    }
};
newBackground.setTileModeXY(background.getTileModeX(), background.getTileModeY());
tv.setBackgroundDrawable(newBackground);
...
...