Password hint font in Android

Question

Changing the typeface in xml didn't work on the hint text for me either. I found two different solutions, the second of which has better behavior for me:

1) Remove android:inputType="textPassword" from your xml file and instead, in set it in java:

EditText password = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.password_text);
password.setTransformationMethod(new PasswordTransformationMethod());

With this approach, the hint font looks good but as you're typing in that edit field, you don't see each character in plain text before it turns into a password dot. Also when making input in fullscreen, the dots will not appear, but the password in clear text.

2) Leave android:inputType="textPassword" in your xml. In Java, ALSO set the typeface and passwordMethod:

EditText password = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.register_password_text);
password.setTypeface(Typeface.DEFAULT);
password.setTransformationMethod(new PasswordTransformationMethod());

This approach gave me the hint font I wanted AND gives me the behavior I want with the password dots.

Hope that helps!

I found this useful tip from Dialogs Guide

Tip: By default, when you set an EditText element to use the "textPassword" input type, the font family is set to monospace, so you should change its font family to "sans-serif" so that both text fields use a matching font style.

---

For example

android:fontFamily="sans-serif"

This is what I did to fix this problem. For some reason I didn't have to set the transformation method so this may be a better solution:

In my xml:

<EditText
    android:id="@+id/password_edit_field"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:hint="Password"
    android:inputType="textPassword" />

In my Activity:

EditText password = (EditText) findViewById( R.id.password_edit_field );
password.setTypeface( Typeface.DEFAULT );

The setTransformationMethod approach breaks android:imeOption for me, and allows carriage returns to be typed into the password field. Instead I'm doing this:

setInputType(InputType.TYPE_CLASS_TEXT | InputType.TYPE_TEXT_VARIATION_PASSWORD);
setTypeface(Typeface.DEFAULT);

And am not setting android:password="true" in XML.

The answer manisha provided does work, but it leaves the password field in a nonstandard state compared to the default. That is, the default fontface then applies also to the password field, including both the dot replacements and the preview characters that appears before being replaced with the dots (as well as when it is a "visible password" field).

To fix this and make it 1) look and act exactly like the default textPassword input type, but also 2) allow the hint text to appear in a default (non-monospace) font, you need to have a TextWatcher on the field that can toggle the fontface properly back and forth between Typeface.DEFAULT and Typeface.MONOSPACE based on whether it is empty or not. I created a helper class that can be used to accomplish that:

import android.graphics.Typeface;
import android.text.Editable;
import android.text.TextWatcher;
import android.view.inputmethod.EditorInfo;
import android.widget.TextView;

/**
 * This class watches the text input in a password field in order to toggle the field's font so that the hint text
 * appears in a normal font and the password appears as monospace.
 *
 * <p />
 * Works around an issue with the Hint typeface.
 *
 * @author jhansche
 * @see <a
 * href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3406534/password-hint-font-in-android">http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3406534/password-hint-font-in-android</a>
 */
public class PasswordFontfaceWatcher implements TextWatcher {
    private static final int TEXT_VARIATION_PASSWORD =
            (EditorInfo.TYPE_CLASS_TEXT | EditorInfo.TYPE_TEXT_VARIATION_PASSWORD);
    private TextView mView;

    /**
     * Register a new watcher for this {@code TextView} to alter the fontface based on the field's contents.
     *
     * <p />
     * This is only necessary for a textPassword field that has a non-empty hint text. A view not meeting these
     * conditions will incur no side effects.
     *
     * @param view
     */
    public static void register(TextView view) {
        final CharSequence hint = view.getHint();
        final int inputType = view.getInputType();
        final boolean isPassword = ((inputType & (EditorInfo.TYPE_MASK_CLASS | EditorInfo.TYPE_MASK_VARIATION))
                == TEXT_VARIATION_PASSWORD);

        if (isPassword && hint != null && !"".equals(hint)) {
            PasswordFontfaceWatcher obj = new PasswordFontfaceWatcher(view);
            view.addTextChangedListener(obj);

            if (view.length() > 0) {
                obj.setMonospaceFont();
            } else {
                obj.setDefaultFont();
            }
        }
    }

    public PasswordFontfaceWatcher(TextView view) {
        mView = view;
    }

    public void onTextChanged(final CharSequence s, final int start, final int before, final int count) {
        // Not needed
    }

    public void beforeTextChanged(final CharSequence s, final int start, final int count, final int after) {
        if (s.length() == 0 && after > 0) {
            // Input field went from empty to non-empty
            setMonospaceFont();
        }
    }

    public void afterTextChanged(final Editable s) {
        if (s.length() == 0) {
            // Input field went from non-empty to empty
            setDefaultFont();
        }
    }

    public void setDefaultFont() {
        mView.setTypeface(Typeface.DEFAULT);
    }

    public void setMonospaceFont() {
        mView.setTypeface(Typeface.MONOSPACE);
    }
}

Then to make use of it, all you need to do is call the register(View) static method. Everything else is automatic (including skipping the workaround if the view does not require it!):

    final EditText txtPassword = (EditText) view.findViewById(R.id.txt_password);
    PasswordFontfaceWatcher.register(txtPassword);