Changing font size into an AlertDialog

Question

I am trying to put some loooong text into an AlertDialog. The only issue the default font size that is really too big, so I want to make it smaller.

Here are all the workaround I tried and their issues.

Workaround 1) Using a TextView and myView.setTextSize(12);

final TextView myView = new TextView(getApplicationContext());
myView.setText(myLongText);
myView.setTextSize(12);
final AlertDialog d = new AlertDialog.Builder(context)
    .setPositiveButton(android.R.string.ok, null)
.setTitle(myTitle)
.setView(myView)
.create();

Issues: Layout is not scrolling

Workaround 2) making TextView scrollable.

message.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());

Issues: Layout is scrolling, bute there is no "inertia" (don't know how to call that.. But I guess you understand.)

Workaround 3) Using a Scrollview.

That's what I am going to try, but I cannot believe there are no easier solutions...

Solution 1

You can actually get access to the message's TextView pretty easily, and then change it's size. I tested with a bigger size, but you could use whatever size you want. The text will scroll nicely as it already does. The view's id is android.R.id.message

    AlertDialog dialog = new AlertDialog.Builder(this).setMessage("Hello world").show();
    TextView textView = (TextView) dialog.findViewById(android.R.id.message);
    textView.setTextSize(40);

This is probably a cleaner solution, though I'm not sure if there's a risk that the TextView could be null or not.

Solution 2

I am using the following code to change the title and message text for AlertDialog…

final int alertTitle = ctx.getResources().getIdentifier("alertTitle", "id", "android");
setTitleFont((TextView) dlg.findViewById(alertTitle));
setBodyFont((TextView) dlg.findViewById(android.R.id.message));

… making sure that I check for null in my setTitleFont and setBodyFont methods.

Solution 3

For Buttons:

  final AlertDialog ad = new AlertDialog.Builder(mainScreen)
.setPositiveButton("OK", null) 
.setNegativeButton("Cancel", null).create();

ad.setOnShowListener(new DialogInterface.OnShowListener() {
                                            @Override
                                            public void onShow(DialogInterface dialog) {
                                                int textSize = (int) Helper.getDimen(mainScreen, R.dimen.textSize12);
                                                ad.getButton(Dialog.BUTTON_POSITIVE).setTextSize(textSize);
                                                ad.getButton(Dialog.BUTTON_NEGATIVE).setTextSize(textSize);
                                            }


                                      });

ad.show();

Solution 4

Here is my solution... you need to create the scroll container, then add the TextView inside the ScrollView just as you would in the XML layout.

AlertDialog alertDialog = new AlertDialog.Builder(this).create();
String str = getString(R.string.upgrade_notes); 
final ScrollView s_view = new ScrollView(getApplicationContext());
final TextView t_view = new TextView(getApplicationContext());
t_view.setText(str);
t_view.setTextSize(14);     
s_view.addView(t_view);
alertDialog.setTitle("Upgrade notes!");
alertDialog.setView(s_view);

View more solutions

Comments

[gaara87]

well, the text textView object does seem to be null

[Some Noob Student]

You must call setMessage() when building the dialog, otherwise there would be no message textview in the first place.

[Sebastian]

Actually you have to call show() too, otherwise there's no TextView. If you want to scale the buttons as well, use android.R.id.button1 etc

[Stephen Hosking]

This worked for getting the title View (thanks!), but once I got it I could only set two fonts: the standard font, and a tiny font (with 11.0 for the value).

[jmacedo]

This worked for me to set a font from assets folder to the title of the alert box. Good one!

[Steven L]

Thanks a lot! Using this I was able to change the title font size as follows: int alertTitle = context.getResources().getIdentifier("alertTitle", "id", "android"); View title = dialog.findViewById(alertTitle); if (title != null && title instanceof TextView) { ((TextView) title).setTextSize(14); }

[Lv99Zubat]

what is the difference between these two methods of getting reference to the id. Why is there no android.R.id.alertTitle?

[CoolMind]

See stackoverflow.com/a/18767270/2914140 to understand why textView can be null.

[Anne Gunn]

Not sure why this isn't getting any upvotes. It may not be an answer to the OP's direct question but as soon as you make the message bigger/smaller, you'll may well want to make the button text bigger/smaller. This seems like a nice, natural (alright, at least javascript-y) way to accomplish the task if it has to be done at runtime anyway. I combined this with the accepted good answer (stackoverflow.com/a/6563075/165164) and put those two lines inside the listener. Also, didn't bother with the getDimen call, just set a size. Don't forget to declare ad final!

[zygimantus]

How to change that font if one has only AlertDialog.Builder object?

[CopsOnRoad]

What about the size of the Title now (android.R.id.message is for message field of the AlertDialog). What id is allocated for the Title?

[doctorram]

This solution doesn't seem to work anymore with the recent updates. findViewById() always returns null. :-(

[Arturo Mejia]

If you're using android.support.v7.app.AlertDialog, you have to use android.support.v7.appcompat.R.id.alertTitle otherwise use android.R.id.title

[Sam Chen]

No more working in 2020. Using custom style is the only way to workout.