Question

I’m pretty new to android programming, but I’ve had some people program a widget for me, but they’ve done things a little differently than what I would’ve wanted… They set up all of the text in the widget to be displayed as bitmap instead of a textview. This doesn’t give me the control I would like though. Let me post up the code for what I have with this and see if anybody can help. Here is the .java code for it:

    String strHourFormat = "hh:mm";
    String strDateFormat = "MM.dd.yy";
    SimpleDateFormat fHour = new SimpleDateFormat(strHourFormat);
    SimpleDateFormat fDate = new SimpleDateFormat(strDateFormat);
    Date date = new Date();
    String am = date.getHours() > 11 ? "PM":"AM";

    setContentView(R.layout.widget_ui);
    TextView day = new TextView(this);
    day = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.day);
    day.setText("" + fDate.format( date));
    day.setTypeface(Typeface.createFromAsset(this.getAssets(), "roboto_thin.ttf"));

    ///////////
    WidgetBiggs.previousState = WidgetBiggs.getWifiState(getApplication());     
    SoundDebug.previousState = SoundDebug.getSoundState(getApplication());
    // Update each requested appWidgetId
    RemoteViews widgetView = WidgetBiggs.buildUpdate(getApplication(), -1);

    for(int wid:widgetIds){
        //final RemoteViews widgetView = new RemoteViews(getPackageName(),R.layout.widget_ui);
        widgetView.setImageViewBitmap( R.id.img_Hour, updateFontText(""+fHour.format(date),40,100,84,100,60)); 
        widgetView.setImageViewBitmap( R.id.img_AM, updateFontText(""+am,25,40,84,40,60)); 
        widgetView.setImageViewBitmap( R.id.img_Day, updateFontText("" + fDate.format( date),38,150,40,150,40)); 
        //widgetView.setImageViewBitmap( R.id.img_Weather, updateFontText(getWeatherGoogle().toString(),25,120,30,120,30));

some other stuff in between….

private Bitmap updateFontText(String time, int size, int width, int height, int widthText, int heightText) 
{
Bitmap myBitmap = Bitmap.createBitmap(width, height, Bitmap.Config.ARGB_4444);
Canvas myCanvas = new Canvas(myBitmap);
Paint paint = new Paint();
Typeface clock = Typeface.createFromAsset(this.getAssets(),"roboto_thin.ttf");
paint.setAntiAlias(true);
paint.setSubpixelText(true);
paint.setTypeface(clock);
paint.setStyle(Paint.Style.FILL);
paint.setColor(Color.WHITE);
paint.setTextSize(size);
paint.setTextAlign(Align.RIGHT );
myCanvas.drawText(time, widthText, heightText, paint);
return myBitmap;

And here is the XML that I’ve started:

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/day"
    android:visibility="visible"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_gravity="center"
    android:gravity="center_horizontal|center_vertical"
    android:textSize="32dp">            
</TextView>

This causes my application to go haywire. If you see anything that stands out please let me know. I would like to take the bitmap text out, and put the textview text in. Thank you!

Answer 1

There is nothing wrong with their bitmap strategy. Just change the ‘size’ parameter based on the screen density.

DisplayMetrics metrics = new DisplayMetrics();
getWindowManager().getDefaultDisplay().getMetrics(metrics);

Now muliply your size, width, height, widthText, and heightText values by metrics.density.

That will treat them as dp values to produce the correct px value for the screen you are on.

From the docs:

The DisplayMetrics.density field specifies the scale factor you must
use to convert dp units to pixels, according to the current screen
density. On a medium-density screen, DisplayMetrics.density equals
1.0; on a high-density screen it equals 1.5; on an extra high-density screen, it equals 2.0; and on a low-density screen, it equals 0.75.
This figure is the factor by which you should multiply the dp units on
order to get the actual pixel count for the current screen.

You’ll have more control over the font rendering if you stick with the bitmaps.