Working with the EditText - nhtechip/android-bootstrap GitHub Wiki

The EditText is the standard text entry widget in Android apps. If the user needs to enter text into an app, this is the primary way for them to do that.

There are many important properties that can be set to customize the behavior of an EditText. Several of these are listed below. Check out the official text fields guide for even more input field details.

An EditText is added to a layout with all default behaviors with the following XML:

<EditText
    android:id="@+id/et_simple"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_width="match_parent">
</EditText>

Note that an EditText is simply a thin extension of the TextView and inherits all of the same properties.

Getting the value of the text entered into an EditText is as follows:

EditText simpleEditText = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.et_simple);
String strValue = simpleEditText.getText().toString();

By default, any text contents within an EditText control is displayed as plain text. By setting inputType, we can facilitate input of different types of information, like phone numbers and passwords:

<EditText
    ...
    android:inputType="phone">
</EditText>

Most common input types include:

You can see a list of all available input types here.

We might want to limit the entry to a single-line of text (avoid newlines):

<EditText
  android:singleLine="true"
  android:lines="1"
/>

You might also want to use the capitalize attribute to automatically capitalize each sentence, word or character:

<EditText
  android:capitalize="sentences"
/>

You can limit the characters that can be entered into a field using the digits attribute:

<EditText
  android:inputType="number"
  android:digits="01"
/>

This would restrict the digits entered to just "0" and "1". We might want to limit the total number of characters with:

<EditText
  android:maxLength="5"
/>

Using these properties we can define the expected input behavior for text fields.

You may want to set the hint for the EditText control to prompt a user for specific input with:

<EditText
    ...
    android:hint="@string/my_hint">
</EditText>

which results in:

Check out the basic event listeners cliffnotes for a look at how to listen for changes to an EditText and perform an action when those changes occur.

Check out the official text fields guide for a step-by-step on how to setup autocomplete for the entry.

• http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/controls/text.html
• http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/android-user-interface-design-edittext-controls--mobile-7183
• http://www.codeofaninja.com/2012/01/android-edittext-example.html
• http://www.tutorialspoint.com/android/android_edittext_control.htm
• http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/EditText.html