Question

I’m using an AlertDialog with a custom view that contains an EditText widget. I want to change the contents of the EditText widget before the AlertDialog is shown. I know that this is usually done by overriding onPrepareDialog() and setting the text there. However, as far as I can see, this will not work in my specific case because I use AlertDialog.show() instead of Activity.showDialog().

So how should I do this with a dialog that is shown using AlertDialog.show()? One solution is to set the text after the dialog has been brought to the front, i.e.:

AlertDialog alertDialog = builder.create(); 
alertDialog.show();
EditText editText = (EditText) alertDialog.findViewById(R.id.text);
editText.setText("Foo bar");

However, I don’t think that this is a nice solution because the dialog is first shown and then the text is set. I’d like to set the text before the dialog is actually shown.

Is there any way to achieve this? I cannot do it before alertDialog.show() because findViewById() returns null when called before alertDialog.show().

Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

AlertDialog alertDialog = builder.create(); 
alertDialog.show();

Since you have access to the AlertDialog.Builder object, simply change the layout before calling builder.create().

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Addition

I have an EditText widget in my XML file which I inflate using builder.setView(inflater.inflate(R.layout.mydialog, null)). How do I change the text of this EditText widget without calling findViewById()?

Break that line into a series of commands. Specifically: inflate the XML, alter the layout, and pass it to setView().

View view = inflater.inflate(R.layout.mydialog, null);
EditText editText = (EditText) view.findViewById(R.id.text);
editText.setText("Foo bar");
builder.setView(view);