Question

Something very strange is going on with a custom view containing a TextView. Roughly speaking, (relevant code below), I have a custom view (subclass of FrameLayout), which inflates some xml and adds the resulting View as a child. The inflated view contains a TextView, referred to below as “the label”. Also possibly relevant (in case you’re not going to look at the code) is that the custom view is added as a child to a MapView.

The following really weird stuff happens:

• Do nothing: label is not visible, parent looks fine. Interestingly, the parent view is clearly taking the label’s width into account (with the label visibility set to GONE the parent view is much narrower). In design mode the label is visible.
• Touch the parent view: Label briefly becomes visible, then disappears. Holding your finger on it keeps the label visible until you end the touch.
• Call this.setPressed(true), this of course being the parent view, from the parent view’s constructor: Label becomes visible, and stays that way until the parent view is touched, after which behavior reverts to “normal”.

Here’s the relevant code. By way of context, we’re sticking a balloon on a map when you touch the map, which should contain something along the lines of “Tap to choose this location”. There are some other views in the balloon, but their visibility is set to GONE initially, and the code to fill them in and show them is disabled. There are no map overlays involved, just attaching the view directly to the map with MODE_MAP to stick it to a single location.

From the custom view, BalloonView.java. Nothing else in this class touches the layout/view methods.

public BalloonView(Context context) {
    super(context);

    if(!isInEditMode()){ // RoboGuice doesn't like edit mode
        RoboGuice.getInjector(context).injectMembersWithoutViews(this);
    }

    LayoutInflater inflater = (LayoutInflater) context
            .getSystemService(Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);

    // We're *not* attaching the view with it's default layout params.
    View v = inflater.inflate(R.layout.balloon_view, this, false); 
    FrameLayout.LayoutParams params = new FrameLayout.LayoutParams(
            ViewGroup.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT,
            ViewGroup.LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT);
    params.gravity = Gravity.NO_GRAVITY;

    addView(v,params);

    label = (TextView) v.findViewById(R.id.label);
    addressContainer = v.findViewById(R.id.addressContainer);
    address1 = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.address1);
    address2 = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.address2);

    // makes label visible initially
    // setPressed(true);

}

    // This is the constructor that we actually call, in case it matters...  
public BalloonView(Context context, OnClickListener onClick) {
    this(context);
    setOnClickListener(onClick);
}

balloon_view.xml

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/label"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_marginBottom="6dip"
        android:layout_marginLeft="6dip"
        android:layout_marginRight="6dip"
        android:layout_marginTop="6dip" 
        android:text="@string/map_balloon_label"
        android:enabled="true"
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceMedium" />

    <LinearLayout
        android:id="@+id/addressContainer"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_marginBottom="6dip"
        android:layout_marginLeft="8dip"
        android:visibility="gone" >

        <ImageView
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="match_parent"
            android:contentDescription="@string/place" 
            android:src="@drawable/location_place" />

        <LinearLayout
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_marginLeft="10dip"
            android:orientation="vertical" >

            <TextView
                android:id="@+id/address1"
                android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"  
                android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceSmall"
                android:visibility="visible" />

            <TextView
                android:id="@+id/address2"
                android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
                android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceSmall" />
        </LinearLayout>

    </LinearLayout>

</LinearLayout>

Here’s where we attach the BalloonView to the MapView
private MapView.LayoutParams getBalloonViewLayoutParams(GeoPoint where){
return new MapView.LayoutParams(
ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT,
ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT,
where, MapView.LayoutParams.BOTTOM_CENTER);
}

private void showBalloon(QPGeoPoint where) {
    latitude = where.getLatitude();
    longitude = where.getLongitude();
    BalloonView bv = getBalloonView();
    if(bv.getParent() != mapView){
        Ln.d("bv.getParent()!=mapView");
        mapView.addView(balloonView, getBalloonViewLayoutParams(where));
    }else{
        Ln.d("parent was map view");
        balloonView.setLayoutParams(getBalloonViewLayoutParams(where));
    }
    balloonView.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
    balloonView.setLocation(where); 
}

Other (possibly) relevant things:

• We’re using ActionBarSherlock, RoboGuice, and the roboguice-sherlock plugin.

• The application theme is set to Sherlock.Theme.Light.DarkActionBar, but the activity in question has it’s theme set to Theme.DeviceDefault.NoTitleBar.

I am completely baffled, have been trying to figure this out for hours, and will continue to do so and post updates as I find new clues.

Answer 1

Well ladies and gents, here it is:

The text and background were both white. Touching the text set it’s color state to pressed, which made it black.

The quick fix is to change the textColor attribute on the text view.

A more general fix might be to use a different theme for this activity, say, Theme.DeviceDefault.Light.NoTitleBar.

Feeling pretty dumb on this one ;P