How can I show ellipses on my TextView if it is greater than the 1 line?

Question

I have the following Layout which does not work:

<LinearLayout 
    android:orientation="horizontal" 
    android:layout_width="match_parent" 
    android:id="@+id/experienceLayout" 
    android:background="#ffffff" 
    android:layout_height="match_parent" 
    android:paddingLeft="6dp" 
    android:paddingRight="6dp" 
    android:paddingBottom="6dp" 
    android:paddingTop="6dp">

    <TextView 
        android:layout_weight="1" 
        android:id="@+id/experienceLabel" 
        android:text="Experience" 
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
        android:textColor="#000000" 
        android:layout_width="wrap_content" 
        android:textStyle="bold">
    </TextView>

    <TextView 
        android:id="@+id/experienceTextView" 
        android:text="TextView" 
        android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
        android:textColor="#000000" 
        android:layout_width="wrap_content" 
        android:ellipsize="end" 
        android:lines="1" 
        android:maxLines="1" 
        android:singleLine="true" 
        android:fadeScrollbars="false">
    </TextView>

</LinearLayout>

Electrify

Answer 1

This is a common problem. Try using the following:

android:scrollHorizontally="true"
android:ellipsize="end" 
android:maxLines="1"

.............. the scrollHorizontally is the "special sauce" that makes it work.

Closeup

Strange... I tried android:scrollHorizontally="true" but it didn't work, I had to use the deprecated attribute android:singleLine="true". – Hick

yes scrollHorizontally is the actual key to ... – Buettner

scrollHorizontally? obviously i don't want a horizontal scroll effect. – Authoritarian

@user1232726: Yes, "scroll horizontally." As a matter of common sense, take a look at the date of the question and the date of the responses ... goes without saying that neither might be currently relavant (before commenting). – Closeup

Using ellipsize with maxLines might crash the app - Report from Android Studio intellisense – Berthaberthe

@VaishnavMhetre I just implement the solution above and has no crash at all. – Hulbig

Works without scrollHorizontally property. – Spunky

Answer 2

This will also make a single line with ellipsise

 android:singleLine="true"

Classicism

This is deprecated apparently – Wickner

This one better breaks long words. – Nicolas

android:maxLines="1" – Insensibility

@grebulon It is deprecated. At least now. – Marleen

Answer 3

Use this

android:ellipsize="end"  
android:singleLine="true"

---

Don't use this without fully aware of what output comes

android:ellipsize="end"  
android:maxLines="1"

When you use maxlines = 1 it will some time truncate most of the characters.

Este

Answer 4

The way it worked for me on multiple devices / APIs was programmatically like this (where tv is your TextView):

    if (tv.getLineCount() > 1) {
        int lineEndIndex = tv.getLayout().getLineEnd(0);
        String text = tv.getText().subSequence(0, lineEndIndex - 3) + "\u2026";
        tv.setText(text);
    }

Ferromanganese

This is the most helpful answer of all... works on every single API and can be easily convert it as a Utils library. – Burnham

You should use the ellipsis character \u2026 instead of the three . characters – Thumbtack

You are right @ChrisStillwell and I do use the ellipsis character in my code. I've edited the answer, thank you. :) – Ferromanganese

Answer 5

So all the answers above cater to the requirement that only 1 line and then the ellipsis should appear. However if you want the ellipsis to appear after certain lines of text, then you should use the following:

android:ellipsize="end"
android:maxLines="2"
android:singleLine="false"

With this the ellipsis will appear only after 2 lines. Note: Its important to have singleLine as false.

Vshaped

The default value is false according to the documentation: developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/… – Anatollo

Answer 6

This helped me out:

android:ellipsize="end"
android:maxLines="1"
android:singleLine="true"

Make sure the TextView width is set to Match_Parent

https://github.com/chrisjenx/Calligraphy/issues/43#issuecomment-523701518

Haematocryal

Answer 7

android:singleLine is deprecated. In my case, I had to get a fixed height for the TextView and I used the android:lines attribute instead of android:maxLines. I thought this might help someone having the same problem as mine.

android:ellipsize="end"
android:lines="2"

Preordain

Not true. Documentation doesn't say anything about deprecation: developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/… – Vasectomy

@Vasectomy Interesting. This document says that it is - developer.android.com/reference/android/R.attr.html#singleLine – Preordain

@cesards, According to Android in Code documentation: This (android:singleLine) attribute is deprecated. Use maxLines instead to change the layout of a static text, and use the textMultiLine flag in the inputType attribute instead for editable text views (if both singleLine and inputType are supplied, the inputType flags will override the value of singleLine). – Sterlingsterlitamak