Android and displaying multi-lined text in a TextView in a TableRow

SK9 picture SK9 · Mar 8, 2011 · Viewed 65k times · Source

I'm displaying a TableLayout with rows as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<TableRow
  xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  android:layout_width="match_parent"
  android:layout_height="wrap_content">

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

        <TextView   
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:id="@+id/one"
            android:layout_marginLeft="10dip"
            android:textColor="#B0171F" />
        <TextView
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_below="@id/one"
            android:id="@+id/two"
            android:layout_marginLeft="10dip"
            android:ellipsize="none"
            android:singleLine="false"
            android:scrollHorizontally="false"
            android:maxLines="10"
            android:textColor="@android:color/black" />

  </RelativeLayout>

</TableRow>

I'm hitting this with everything I can find here and can think of to permit the text to wrap on many lines but to no avail: The text is always forced to a single line, running off the screen. It might matter that I'm working inside a TableRow here, and so far as I can tell this hasn't been treated on this site.

So, how do I force my second TextView to wrap to many lines?

Answer

Michael Biermann picture Michael Biermann · Mar 21, 2011

The TextView will wrap the text if the column it's in is set to shrink. Sometimes it does not wrap exactly, if the text ends with ", ...", then it is a little bit longer than exactly n lines.

Here's an example, the TextView with the id question will wrap:

<TableLayout
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
    android:shrinkColumns="*">
    <TableRow>
         <TextView
             android:id="@+id/question"
             android:layout_width="wrap_content"
             android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>
    </TableRow>
</TableLayout>