How do I use a compound drawable instead of a LinearLayout that contains an ImageView and a TextView

Question

Ran the new Lint tool against my code. It came up with a lot of good suggestions, but this one I cannot understand.

This tag and its children can be replaced by one and a compound drawable

Issue: Checks whether the current node can be replaced by a TextView using compound drawables.

A LinearLayout which contains an ImageView and a TextView can be more efficiently handled as a compound drawable

And here is my layout

<LinearLayout
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:orientation="horizontal"
android:layout_centerInParent="true">

<ImageView 
    android:id="@+id/upImage"
    android:layout_width="20dp"
    android:layout_height="20dp"
    android:layout_gravity="center_vertical"
    android:scaleType="centerInside"
    android:src="@drawable/up_count_big">
</ImageView>

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/LikeCount"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_marginLeft="2dp"
    android:layout_marginBottom="1dp"
    android:textColor="@color/gray"
    android:textSize="16sp"
    android:layout_gravity="center_vertical">
</TextView>
</LinearLayout>

Can someone provide a concrete example of how to make a compound drawable in this case?

Arteritis

fwiw that's one of the checks I normally disable, because of the false positives. Not all TextView / ImageView combos can be replaced in this way. – Hepner

@RichardLeMesurier You can use custom view if you want to define a size of image. This will make your view lighter. See my answer: https://mcmap.net/q/120656/-compounddrawable-size – Cohort

@Alex I agree in many cases, however in my experience I have often it not worth the trouble of creating a custom view to get around what I consider to be a buggy Lint check. – Hepner

Answer 1

TextView comes with 4 compound drawables, one for each of left, top, right and bottom.

In your case, you do not need the LinearLayout and ImageView at all. Just add android:drawableLeft="@drawable/up_count_big" to your TextView.

See TextView#setCompoundDrawablesWithIntrinsicBounds for more info.

Erythroblastosis

not necessarily, as your link shows an example with a dynamic image. In that case it may still be easier or preferable to use an ImageView. The warning says 'can be replaced by', not 'should be replaced by' – Caballero

but how can I make some space between Image and Text – Stinko

@Hitesh Dhamshaniya, using DrawablePadding property in XML or code. – Chinkapin

and you can also link TextView drawables to xml states, explained here: 2cupsoftech.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/… – Halfbreed

In my case, I moved to a LinearLayout with an inner ImageView/TextView because the android:drawableLeft didn't offer enough control -- so, what you're basically telling me is that this warning/suggestion is a lie. – Pressmark

It's not a lie, for some cases a single TextView could indeed be efficient. But in general - yes, ImageView with TextView provides much richer control. – Seaborne

And how do you apply tinting to the compound drawables? I need that option? – Vacuity

@Puni, do you use SVG images? If yes, you should add a support. – Febri

Answer 2

if for some reason you need to add via code, you can use this:

mTextView.setCompoundDrawablesWithIntrinsicBounds(left, top, right, bottom);

where left, top, right bottom are Drawables

Macula

Require API 17 above – Crissy

I don't think so, documentation states since API 1 – Macula

See this link [documentation](developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/…, android.graphics.drawable.Drawable, android.graphics.drawable.Drawable, android.graphics.drawable.Drawable)) – Crissy

yeah note the Relative in the method name ;) I'm not referring to this one in the answer – Macula

Answer 3

To add to this - it seems important to define the width & height of the drawable as per this post:

• Drawable shape not showing when used in combination with android:drawableBottom attribute.

(his code works)

Hepner

Answer 4

You can use general compound drawable implementation, but if you need to define a size of drawable use this library:

https://github.com/a-tolstykh/textview-rich-drawable

Here is a small example of usage:

<com.tolstykh.textviewrichdrawable.TextViewRichDrawable
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="Some text"
        app:compoundDrawableHeight="24dp"
        app:compoundDrawableWidth="24dp" />

Cohort