Using Custom fonts on Android

I had to do this for a project that I am working on, and I felt that it wasn't possible to achieve this. Well, there are several examples on the internet regarding this and nothing seemed to be working for me. So, in this post, we will see how to use custom fonts for your application on Android.

Few things before we start off:

• Not all fonts are compatible with Android
• You need to package the ttf files with your apk
• It's obviously a little bit of extra work

So for this example, we have a TextView and a Button with different fonts. To be able to use your custom font everywhere, ie, on all the TextView and Button widgets in your app, you will have to extend these classes to create your own TextView and Button classes. I have named them as MyTextView and MyButton. And then, I can use these buttons in my layout xml files, with the fully-qualified name of my custom classes.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent">

    <com.beanie.samples.customfont.MyTextView
        android:layout_marginTop="10dip" android:id="@+id/textView"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="@string/hello" android:textSize="20sp"></com.beanie.samples.customfont.MyTextView>

    <com.beanie.samples.customfont.MyButton
        android:layout_marginTop="10dip" android:id="@+id/textView"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="@string/hello" android:textSize="20sp"></com.beanie.samples.customfont.MyButton>
</LinearLayout>

In both these classes, we have a method called init() which is called from all the constructors. The method is just 3 line long.

        if (!isInEditMode()) {
                  Typeface tf = Typeface.createFromAsset(getContext().getAssets(), "fonts/ds_digib.ttf");
                  setTypeface(tf);
        }

Simple!!! You might notice that there is an if condition. This is not required, but it does help when you are preparing your layouts on eclipse, and you need to keep checking if everything's fine. This method, isInEditMode() returns true while eclipses tries to render the view from the XML.

This is what the documentation says:

Indicates whether this View is currently in edit mode. A View is usually in edit mode when displayed within a developer tool. For instance, if this View is being drawn by a visual user interface builder, this method should return true. Subclasses should check the return value of this method to provide different behaviors if their normal behavior might interfere with the host environment. For instance: the class spawns a thread in its constructor, the drawing code relies on device-specific features, etc. This method is usually checked in the drawing code of custom widgets.

If you don't put this condition, the layout editor will complain about not being able to set the TypeFace. So, in the layout editor, you will see your TextView and Button widgets with the default font. But, when you run your app on an emulator or a device, you can see the goodness of your custom fonts.

The source code for the sample project can be found here. You can find 3 different fonts (ttf file) in the assets folder to play with.

Android 2.0 !! Overview

Here is a list of apps that have been removed from the emulator. 1. Calendar 2. Camcorder 3. Google Maps The icons now have a new look and feel. Though I like the Donut icons, I guess, icons will keep changing. One issue with the default-email client that is supposed to support Exchange. I have successfully added an exchange account. But I am not able to see any new mails, and also, the mails I sent are still in the Outbox. When I go to contacts to add contacts from my Exchange Account, the application crashed. I couldn't test if the Contact's application can really synchronize with the exchange server. As for Google Maps, I think it will be shipped with the handsets only, as a separate application, and your code that uses Google Maps features will work on handsets, but as of now, there is no way to test such applications, unless you get it installed on your emulator. A lot of animated transitions when you switch between screens. And the new "Unlock" feature to unlock the key pad looks cool, but I guess, it would be a bit uncomfortable to use. You should need minimum effort to unlock your keypad. On the surface, you will basically find a complete UI change. I haven't yet digged into the new APIs. Have an Eclair !!!!! :)