Question

How do you remove the default text you assign a <editText> when the user focuses on that text box?

I found the code below that looks like it should work but when I click on the text box I still have to delete the default text before typing new text.

         final EditText RemoveZipField = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.zipcode);
         RemoveZipField.setOnFocusChangeListener(new OnFocusChangeListener()
         {
             @Override
            public void onFocusChange(View v, boolean hasFocus) 
             {
                 if (hasFocus==true)
                 {
                     if (RemoveZipField.getText().toString().compareTo("Zipcode")==0)
                     {
                         String inText = "I AM IN";
                         Log.d(TAG,  inText);
                         RemoveZipField.setText("");
                     }else{
                         String outText = "I AM OUT";
                         Log.d(TAG,  outText);
                     }
                 }
             }
         });

Answer 1

Instead of adding “default text” to the EditText, why don’t you just use the built in hint functionality?

It can be specified in XML like this:

<EditText
<!-- layout width/height code -->
    android:hint="Phone Number"
/>