Android - Spacing between CheckBox and text

Question

Is there an easy way to add padding between the checkbox in a CheckBox control, and the associated text?

I cannot just add leading spaces, because my label is multi-

Answer 1

Given @DougW response, what I do to manage version is simpler, I add to my checkbox view:

android:paddingLeft="@dimen/padding_checkbox"

where the dimen is found in two values folders:

values

<resources>

    <dimen name="padding_checkbox">0dp</dimen>

</resources>

values-v17 (4.2 JellyBean)

<resources>

    <dimen name="padding_checkbox">10dp</dimen>

</resources>

I have a custom check, use the dps to your best choice.

Answer 2

If you want a clean design without codes, use:

<CheckBox
   android:id="@+id/checkBox1"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:layout_width="wrap_content"
   android:drawableLeft="@android:color/transparent"
   android:drawablePadding="10dp"
   android:text="CheckBox"/>

The trick is to set colour to transparent for android:drawableLeft and assign a value for android:drawablePadding. Also, transparency allows you to use this technique on any background colour without the side effect - like colour mismatch.

Answer 3

I hate to answer my own question, but in this case I think I need to. After checking it out, @Falmarri was on the right track with his answer. The problem is that Android's CheckBox control already uses the android:paddingLeft property to get the text where it is.

The red line shows the paddingLeft offset value of the entire CheckBox

If I just override that padding in my XML layout, it messes up the layout. Here's what setting paddingLeft="0" does:

Turns out you can't fix this in XML. You have do it in code. Here's my snippet with a hardcoded padding increase of 10dp.

final float scale = this.getResources().getDisplayMetrics().density;
checkBox.setPadding(checkBox.getPaddingLeft() + (int)(10.0f * scale + 0.5f),
        checkBox.getPaddingTop(),
        checkBox.getPaddingRight(),
        checkBox.getPaddingBottom());

This gives you the following, where the green line is the increase in padding. This is safer than hardcoding a value, since different devices could use different drawables for the checkbox.

UPDATE - As people have recently mentioned in answers below, this behavior has apparently changed in Jelly Bean (4.2). Your app will need to check which version its running on, and use the appropriate method.

For 4.3+ it is simply setting padding_left. See htafoya's answer for details.

Answer 4

Yes, you can add padding by adding padding.

android:padding=5dp

Answer 5

Maybe it is to late, but I've created utility methods to manage this issue.

Just add this methods to your utils:

public static void setCheckBoxOffset(@NonNull  CheckBox checkBox, @DimenRes int offsetRes) {
    float offset = checkBox.getResources().getDimension(offsetRes);
    setCheckBoxOffsetPx(checkBox, offset);
}

public static void setCheckBoxOffsetPx(@NonNull CheckBox checkBox, float offsetInPx) {
    int leftPadding;
    if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT <= Build.VERSION_CODES.JELLY_BEAN) {
        leftPadding = checkBox.getPaddingLeft() + (int) (offsetInPx + 0.5f);
    } else {
        leftPadding = (int) (offsetInPx + 0.5f);
    }
    checkBox.setPadding(leftPadding,
            checkBox.getPaddingTop(),
            checkBox.getPaddingRight(),
            checkBox.getPaddingBottom());
}

And use like this:

    ViewUtils.setCheckBoxOffset(mAgreeTerms, R.dimen.space_medium);

or like this:

    // Be careful with this usage, because it sets padding in pixels, not in dp!
    ViewUtils.setCheckBoxOffsetPx(mAgreeTerms, 100f);

Answer 6

Why not just extend the Android CheckBox to have better padding instead. That way instead of having to fix it in code every time you use the CheckBox you can just use the fixed CheckBox instead.

First Extend CheckBox:

package com.whatever;

import android.content.Context;
import android.util.AttributeSet;
import android.widget.CheckBox;

/**
 * This extends the Android CheckBox to add some more padding so the text is not on top of the
 * CheckBox.
 */
public class CheckBoxWithPaddingFix extends CheckBox {

    public CheckBoxWithPaddingFix(Context context) {
        super(context);
    }

    public CheckBoxWithPaddingFix(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle) {
        super(context, attrs, defStyle);
    }

    public CheckBoxWithPaddingFix(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
        super(context, attrs);
    }

    @Override
    public int getCompoundPaddingLeft() {
        final float scale = this.getResources().getDisplayMetrics().density;
        return (super.getCompoundPaddingLeft() + (int) (10.0f * scale + 0.5f));
    }
}

Second in your xml instead of creating a normal CheckBox create your extended one

<com.whatever.CheckBoxWithPaddingFix
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="Hello there" />