I'm trying to define a GUI layout using XML files in Android. As far as I can find out, there is no way to specify that your widgets should use a custom font (e.g. one you've placed in assets/font/) in XML files and you can only use the system installed fonts.
I know that, in the Java code, I could change the font of each widget manually using unique IDs. Alternatively, I could iterate over all the widgets in Java to make this change, but this would probably be very slow.
What other options do I have? Is there any better ways to making widgets that have a custom look? I don't particularly want to have to manually change the font for every new widget I add.
You can extend TextView to set custom fonts as I learned here.
TextViewPlus.java:
package com.example;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.res.TypedArray;
import android.graphics.Typeface;
import android.util.AttributeSet;
import android.util.Log;
import android.widget.TextView;
public class TextViewPlus extends TextView {
private static final String TAG = "TextView";
public TextViewPlus(Context context) {
super(context);
}
public TextViewPlus(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
super(context, attrs);
setCustomFont(context, attrs);
}
public TextViewPlus(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle) {
super(context, attrs, defStyle);
setCustomFont(context, attrs);
}
private void setCustomFont(Context ctx, AttributeSet attrs) {
TypedArray a = ctx.obtainStyledAttributes(attrs, R.styleable.TextViewPlus);
String customFont = a.getString(R.styleable.TextViewPlus_customFont);
setCustomFont(ctx, customFont);
a.recycle();
}
public boolean setCustomFont(Context ctx, String asset) {
Typeface tf = null;
try {
tf = Typeface.createFromAsset(ctx.getAssets(), asset);
} catch (Exception e) {
Log.e(TAG, "Could not get typeface: "+e.getMessage());
return false;
}
setTypeface(tf);
return true;
}
}
attrs.xml: (in res/values)
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
<declare-styleable name="TextViewPlus">
<attr name="customFont" format="string"/>
</declare-styleable>
</resources>
main.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:foo="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/com.example"
android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent">
<com.example.TextViewPlus
android:id="@+id/textViewPlus1"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:text="@string/showingOffTheNewTypeface"
foo:customFont="saxmono.ttf">
</com.example.TextViewPlus>
</LinearLayout>
You would put "saxmono.ttf" in the assets folder.
There are serious memory concerns with this method. See chedabob's comment below.