Android how to create textview one over another

Question

I am developing an Android application with a textview updated by one event and at the same place where the textview is present, I want 1 more textview so that other event can update this new textview. How do i achieve in having 1 textview on other

Answer 1

use relative layout and also you can set text on exiting textView like when event one triggered textView.setText(your text) and same when event two triggered textView.setText(your text)

Answer 2

There is no trick to this. Just put two TextViews in a RelativeLayout at the same position and they will draw overtop of one another. Like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:background="@android:color/white">

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="first textview"/>

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="second textview"/>
</RelativeLayout>

You can make each one visible or invisible by using TextView.setVisibility(...) or you can set their text with TextView.setText(...).

Answer 3

I'm assuming that you're asking how you could have two TextView components overlaying each other. There are a few way you could do this.

Frame Layout

Use a Frame Layout to determine the area in which the TextViews will occupy. Like this...

<FrameLayout  
android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
android:layout_height="wrap_content" >

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/tv1"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/tv2"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

</FrameLayout>

Credit goes to https://stackoverflow.com/a/2634059/3769032

Create a Compound View

This is fairly in-depth for the type of question you are asking. CompoundViews are a collection of typical views, such as a TextView, that you can create if you plan on re-using the view frequently. If you plan on overlaying the TextViews often, I recommend this. So check out this tutorial.

Use only one TextView

Having two overlayed textviews can become messy really quickly. If you have two pieces of text overlayed is becomes impossible to read. So since the content of your textview is based on an event. Use the same event listener in your java code to determine the content of your TextViews. For example, in your on click listener you might have...

TextView tv1 = (TextView) findViewByID(R.id.tv1);

public void onClick(View view){
    if (first_event_happened){
         tv1.setText("One event happened");
    } else if(second_event_happened){
         tv1.setText("A different event happened");
    }
}

These conditions might mean checking the type of view that was clicked, or checking its id (what I usually do). Please comment if things aren't clear. Some clarification on your question would be helpful too.