setting padding for textview not working

Question

I'm trying to implement tags through textview. I type in something to a EditText and press a button to add a tag. I'm programmatically adding padding and rectangle background to the textview but the padding setting does not have any effect. How do I add the padding such that it works?

public void tag_it_callback (View view) {
    Log.v("actv", "tag it callback");
    LinearLayout main_layout = (LinearLayout) findViewById(R.id.main_layout);

    TextView tv = new TextView(this);

    tv.setText( ((EditText) findViewById(R.id.textfield)).getText() );
    main_layout.addView(tv);

    transform_tag(tv);
}

public void transform_tag(TextView tv) {

    // set padding and background
    int padding = 10;
    tv.setPaddingRelative(20, 20, 20, 20);
    tv.setPadding(20, 20, 20, 20);
    tv.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.border);

    // set layout width and height
    LayoutParams params= (LayoutParams) tv.getLayoutParams();
    Log.v("actv", "params "+params);
    if ( params != null ) {
        params.width=LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT;
        params.height=LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT;
    } else {
        params = new LayoutParams(LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT);
    }
    tv.setLayoutParams(params)
}

border.xml goes like this

<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
      <item> 
         <shape android:shape="rectangle">
      <solid android:color="#FF0000" /> 
      <corners
        android:bottomLeftRadius="8dp"
        android:bottomRightRadius="8dp"
        android:topLeftRadius="8dp"
        android:topRightRadius="8dp" />
    </shape>
  </item>   
  <item android:left="5dp" android:right="5dp" android:top="5dp" android:bottom="5dp">  
    <shape android:shape="rectangle"> 
      <solid android:color="#000000" />
    </shape>
   </item>    
     </layer-list>"`<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
      <item> 
    <shape android:shape="rectangle">
      <solid android:color="#FF0000" /> 
      <corners
        android:bottomLeftRadius="8dp"
        android:bottomRightRadius="8dp"
        android:topLeftRadius="8dp"
        android:topRightRadius="8dp" />
    </shape>
  </item>   
  <item android:left="5dp" android:right="5dp" android:top="5dp" android:bottom="5dp">  
    <shape android:shape="rectangle"> 
      <solid android:color="#000000" />
    </shape>
   </item>    
     </layer-list>`

Solution

I finally found the problem I have to set the background first before setting the padding. Setting the padding then setting the background doesn't work

// does not work
tv.setPadding(20, 20, 20, 20);
tv.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.border);


// works
tv.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.border);
tv.setPadding(20, 20, 20, 20);

Comments

[Teong Leong]

That doesn't work. I do not see the padding. The background border is still very close to the text.

[Guilherme Torres Castro]

This has been fixed on Android KitKat (maybe in early version)

[NSouth]

Thanks! This had me stumped for a while, as my padding was not being applied on Android 4.3. Turns out it was because I was setting the color of the view after setting the padding.

[Konstantin Berkov]

I've encountered this bug in Nougat emulator. Very weird.

[Marilia]

I had a similar issue testing on a Samsung Galaxy S3 with Android 4.2.2. Even tho the padding was already set in the xml layout, when later setting the background programmatically the padding was being ignored. I ended up fixing by setting both background and padding programmatically only and in the right order as suggested in this answer.