TextView - setting the text size programmatically doesn't seem to work

Question

the method TextView.setTextSize(int unit , float size); takes two parameters .

Try this :

text.setTextSize(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_SP,14);

refer this and this.

UPDATE: Now the setTextSize(float size) will set the text size automatically in "scaled pixel" units. no need to mention the COMPLEX_UNIT_SP manually. Refer to the documentation.

This fixed the issue for me. I got uniform font size across all devices.

 textView.setTextSize(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_PX,getResources().getDimension(R.dimen.font));

Currently, setTextSize(float size) method will work well so we don't need to use another method for change text size

android.widget.TextView.java source code

/**
 * Set the default text size to the given value, interpreted as "scaled
 * pixel" units.  This size is adjusted based on the current density and
 * user font size preference.
 *
 * <p>Note: if this TextView has the auto-size feature enabled than this function is no-op.
 *
 * @param size The scaled pixel size.
 *
 * @attr ref android.R.styleable#TextView_textSize
 */
@android.view.RemotableViewMethod
public void setTextSize(float size) {
    setTextSize(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_SP, size);
}

Example using

textView.setTextSize(20); // set your text size = 20sp

Text size 2 will be practically invisible. Try it with 14 at least. BTW, using xml has a lot of advantages and will make your life easier once you need to do anything more complex than 'Hello World'.

Please see this link for more information on setting the text size in code. Basically it says:

public void setTextSize (int unit, float size)

Since: API Level 1 Set the default text size to a given unit and value. See TypedValue for the possible dimension units. Related XML Attributes

android:textSize Parameters

unit The desired dimension unit.
size The desired size in the given units.