Java android: appending a newline using TextView

Question

I just want to add a new line somehow to my linear layout:

layout = (LinearLayout) findViewById (R.id.layout);  

... //some other code where I've appended some strings already

final TextView nline = new TextView(this);
nline.setText(Html.fromHtml("<br>")); //i also tried:  nline.setText("\n");
layout.addView(nline);

But this just adds a few spaces. Can someone help me out? Thanks.

Solution 1

If you just want to have some empty space between two other views, you could do this in your XML (assuming you're using XML for the layout). Something like this could work, basically putting in a View with a transparent background and given height. This is assuming you have whatever parameters you want in your TextViews.

<TextView />

<View android:background="#00000000"
      android:layout_height="12dp" //or whatever density pixel height you want
      android:layout_width="fill_parent" />

<TextView />

Also, in what you tried above... you could try a space and newline... that might work.

nline.setText(" \n");

Solution 2

First you need to make your TextView to be multiline. And then use simple "\n" string for linebreak.

final TextView nline = new TextView(this);
nline.setSingleLine(false);
nline.setText("first line\n"+"second line\n"+"third line");

Solution 3

You may need to set the InputType to TYPE_TEXT_FLAG_MULTI_LINE using the setInputType() method of TextView

tv.setInputType(tv.getInputType()|InputType.TYPE_TEXT_FLAG_MULTI_LINE);

You also could just set some margin/padding on the other views. I think that TextViews should not be misused as spacers.

Comments

[Tapa Save]

nline.setText(Html.fromHtml("<br>")); will be work correct if you add nline.setSingleLine( false);

[jpm]

interesting, that nobody else mentions the space before the '\n', thanks Maximus :)

[Zon]

What if it is \n\n ? In this case everything else after that is being cut off.