How to force BottomNavigationView label to multiline

Question

I have a BottomNavigationView with a long label text and it's not showing the full label.

I found that the label on BottomNavigationView has a maxLines="1", but I don't know how to modify it to allow 2 lines label.

I didn't make any changes to the regular BottomNavigation code. Because I don't know what to change. — Bagus Aji Santoso, Nov 15 '19 at 19:02

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 15 '19 at 19:17

Currently there isn't a way to change the android:maxLines="1" used by the items in BottomNavigationMenuView.

It is a workaround and it can stop to work with the future releases.

BottomNavigationMenuView menuView = (BottomNavigationMenuView) bottomNavigationView.getChildAt(0);

for (int i = 0; i < menuView.getChildCount(); i++) {
      BottomNavigationItemView item = (BottomNavigationItemView) menuView.getChildAt(i);
      TextView smallLabel = item.findViewById(R.id.smallLabel);
      TextView largeLabel = item.findViewById(R.id.largeLabel);

      smallLabel.setMaxLines(2);
      largeLabel.setMaxLines(2);
}

Just to explain.
It is the layout used by the BottomNavigationView. Here you can find:

<merge xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
  <ImageView
      android:id="@+id/icon"
      ../>
  <com.google.android.material.internal.BaselineLayout
    ..>
    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/smallLabel"
        android:maxLines="1" 
        ../>
    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/largeLabel"
        android:maxLines="1"
        .../>
  </com.google.android.material.internal.BaselineLayout>
</merge>

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 15 '19 at 19:32

You can also add your own design_bottom_navigation_item.xml in your project. Since the name is exactly the same, it will override the one from the design library. Just make sure that the IDs and View types are the same.

Just be aware that if they change the filename of the original in a later release of the library, the fix will not work anymore.

How to force BottomNavigationView label to multiline

2 Answers2