Label in a editbox in android

Question

My question is, how to put a label in a editBox in android ?

Like for example, i want to put "To:" in editbox of a contact picker which will not get deleted even if I press backspace on the onscreen keyboard.

I tried with android:hint, but it gets deleted when the editBox is focus or clicked.

I tried with image but it's not looking good. So, I need a method by which i can implement this label thing.

See the visual diagram

Answer 1

You could always have a TextView + EditText in a LinearLayout that looks like an EditText like below:

<LinearLayout
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:background="@android:drawable/edit_text" >

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/textView1"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="center_vertical"
        android:text="To:" />

    <EditText
        android:id="@+id/editText1"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="center_vertical"
        android:layout_marginLeft="3dp"
        android:background="@null" />
</LinearLayout>

Answer 2

I give you two ideas to do this :

If you only need this in a couple of places, you can use a FrameLayout / merge to have a TextView over your EditText. Then using a padding on the edit text, you can make it seem like the TextView is "inside" the EditText. :

<FrameLayout
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" >

    <EditText
        android:id="@+id/editText1"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:paddingLeft="40dp" >

        <requestFocus />
    </EditText>

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="center_vertical"
        android:paddingLeft="10dp"
        android:text="To : " />
</FrameLayout>

Else you can inplement your own version of EditText, by writing your own Class. Here's a basic example, you'd need to tweak it a little :

import android.content.Context;
import android.graphics.Canvas;
import android.graphics.Paint;
import android.graphics.Rect;
import android.text.TextPaint;
import android.util.AttributeSet;
import android.widget.EditText;

public class LabelledEditText extends EditText {

    public LabelledEditText(Context context) {
        super(context);
        mPaddingLeft = getPaddingLeft();
    }

    public LabelledEditText(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
        super(context, attrs);
        mPaddingLeft = getPaddingLeft();
    }

    protected void onDraw(Canvas canvas) {
        TextPaint textPaint = getPaint();
        Rect size = new Rect();
        textPaint.getTextBounds(mLabel, 0, mLabel.length(), size);
        setPadding(mPaddingLeft + size.width(), getPaddingTop(), getPaddingRight(), getPaddingBottom());
        super.onDraw(canvas);

        canvas.drawText(mLabel, mPaddingLeft + size.left, size.bottom + getPaddingTop(), textPaint);
    }


    protected void onMeasure(int widthMeasureSpec, int heightMeasureSpec) {
        super.onMeasure(widthMeasureSpec, heightMeasureSpec);
    }

    private String mLabel = "To :  ";
    private int mPaddingLeft;

}