Android : How to differentaite setText and manually entered text

Question

I have an EditText. setText() method of EditText is called on button click . I want to identity if button click is used or user manually enters the location. I have used TextWatcher , the afterTextChange() is called on if user manually enters location and when setText is used.

Is it possible to identity the scenenerio if editext is manually edited or programatically edited.

Please help.

Thanking you in anticipation.

One would think that if a program sets a text it would be able to remember this in a very basic way. Or are there any cases known already where software shows Alzheimer's disease? — class stacker, May 03 '13 at 10:07
That's very general... When do you want to check if they've entered text? when they click a button? When they touch the screen? When the keyboard is no longer showing? — rcbevans, May 03 '13 at 10:10
Naturally, if the `setText()` is called in your app, you, _the developer_, will know where it is triggered from. For example, on the click of a `Button`. Wherever you need to check how the text was set, why not use a `boolean` flag to check it? — Siddharth Lele, May 03 '13 at 10:10
Please mention the purpose of doing such a wierd thing. May be we could guide you for doing something better than this option. — Chintan Soni, May 03 '13 at 10:17

Ahmad · Answer 1 · 2013-05-03T10:18:35.463

3

You could do something like this:

private boolean isTextSetProgrammatically = false;

private void setTextProgrammatically(String text){

myEditText.removeTextChangedListener(instanceOfMyTextWatcher);
myEditText.setText(text);
isTextSetProgrammatically = true;
myEditText.addTextChangedListener(instanceOfMyTextWatcher)

}

And then also set a TextWatcher to your EditText and set isTextSetProgrammatically to false when onTextChanged() gets triggered.

edited May 03 '13 at 10:18

answered May 03 '13 at 10:12

Ahmad

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I think onTextChanged() also gets called when you sets text via settext()... – Pankaj Kumar May 03 '13 at 10:14
@PankajKumar Oh you're right. Wait I'll edit my answer. – Ahmad May 03 '13 at 10:15
yup you are right @PankajKumar – Raghunandan May 03 '13 at 10:18
I edited my answer. Now the TextWatcher will get unregistered before setting the text. – Ahmad May 03 '13 at 10:19

Raghunandan · Answer 2 · 2013-05-03T10:21:52.190

Use a textwatcher along with the suggestion by Ahmad. If use types in edit text you will know.

   EditText search= (EditText) findViewById(R.id.search);
   search.addTextChangedListener(new TextWatcher() {

       public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {
                 // s is the typed character sequence.   

       }

       public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int count,
           int after) {


         }

         public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {
         }
        });

score -2 · Answer 3 · answered May 03 '13 at 10:13

-2

you can write a custom EditText extends EditText and override the setText() method.

@override
public void setText(CharSequence str) {
   super.setText(...);
   // to do you callback
}

answered May 03 '13 at 10:13

chinabrant

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No you cant! setText is a final method and cannot be changed in a Custom Edittext – Antrromet Sep 03 '14 at 12:16

Android : How to differentaite setText and manually entered text

3 Answers3