Using EditText views

We introduced the EditText views to enter editable text content. You can see some new attributes here:

• hint: This defines the default string value that will be presented to the user
• padding: This is the space between the view itself and its content
• gravity: This defines direction for the content; in our case, all text will stick to the top of the parent view

The strings resource file now looks like this:

    <resources> 
      <string name="app_name">Journaler</string> 
      <string name="title">Title</string> 
      <string name="your_note_content_goes_here">Your note content goes 
      here.</string> 
    </resources> 
    Todos screen will be very similar to this: 
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> 
    <ScrollView xmlns:android=
    "http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" 
    android:layout_width="match_parent" 
    android:layout_height="match_parent" 
    android:fillViewport="true"> 
 
    <LinearLayout 
      android:layout_width="match_parent" 
      android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
      android:orientation="vertical"> 
 
    <include layout="@layout/activity_header" /> 
 
    <EditText 
      android:id="@+id/todo_title" 
      android:layout_width="match_parent" 
      android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
      android:hint="@string/title" 
      android:padding="@dimen/form_padding" /> 
 
    <LinearLayout 
      android:layout_width="match_parent" 
      android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
      android:orientation="horizontal" 
      android:weightSum="1"> 
 
   <Button 
      android:id="@+id/pick_date" 
      android:text="@string/pick_a_date" 
      android:layout_width="0dp" 
      android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
      android:layout_weight="0.5" /> 
 
   <Button 
      android:id="@+id/pick_time" 
      android:text="@string/pick_time" 
      android:layout_width="0dp" 
      android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
      android:layout_weight="0.5" /> 
 
   </LinearLayout> 
 
   <EditText 
      android:id="@+id/todo_content" 
      android:layout_width="match_parent" 
      android:layout_height="match_parent" 
      android:gravity="top" 
      android:hint="@string/your_note_content_goes_here" 
      android:padding="@dimen/form_padding" />  
   </LinearLayout> 
   </ScrollView> 

Again, the top container is ScrollView. Compared to the previous screen, we have introduced some differences. We added the container to hold buttons for date and time picking. The orientation is horizontal. We set the parent container attribute, weightSum, to define the weight value that can be divided by children views so each child takes the amount of space defined by its own weight. So, weightSum is one. First button has a layout_weight of 0.5. It will consume 50% of the horizontal space. The second button has the same value. We achieved view splitting in two halves. Locate the bottom of your XML and click on Design to switch to Design view. Your buttons should look like this:

We defined layouts for our screens. To express how these screens should look, we relied on many different attributes. This is just a small portion of the available attributes we can use. To make this section complete, we will present you with some other important attributes that you will use in everyday development.