Question

I have an XML layout that defines a TextView box 50px x 320px who ID is TextView2.
I want to use the same TextView area to show an image sometimes.
I want to programatically be able to switch that area to be either TextView or ImageView.

   <LinearLayout
    android:layout_width="320dp"
    android:layout_height="50dp" >

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/textView2"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_weight="0.35"
        android:text="      "
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge" />
    </LinearLayout>   

Answer 1

Just add an ImageView below / next to your TextView and set the android:visibility=”gone” on the one you don’t want to show.

Also set an android:id=”@+id/some_identifier” so that you can find the view in code and set the TextView to View.GONE and the ImageView to View.VISIBLE when you want to switch.

<LinearLayout
    android:layout_width="320dp"
    android:layout_height="50dp" >

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/textView2"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_weight="0.35"
        android:text="      "
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge" />

    <ImageView
        android:id="@+id/image_view_1"
        android:visibility="gone"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

</LinearLayout>