Live character count for EditText

Question

I was wondering what the best way to do a live character count of an edit-text box is in Android. I was looking at this but I couldn\'t seem to make any sense of it.

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Answer 1

I met the same problem and I tried Cameron's method. It works but there is a minor bug: If the user use copy and paste then it fails to count the chars. So I suggest to do after the text changed, like below:

    private final TextWatcher mTextEditorWatcher = new TextWatcher() {
         public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int count, int after) {

         }

         public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {

         }

          public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {
             //This sets a textview to the current length
             mTextView.setText(String.valueOf(s.length()));
         }
    };

Answer 2

you can use a TextWatcher to see when the text has changed

private TextView mTextView;
private EditText mEditText;
private final TextWatcher mTextEditorWatcher = new TextWatcher() {
        public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int count, int after) {
        }

        public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {
           //This sets a textview to the current length
           mTextView.setText(String.valueOf(s.length()));
        }

        public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {
        }
};

you set the TextWatcher for the edittext with

mEditText.addTextChangedListener(mTextEditorWatcher);

Answer 3

You can do character counting from xml itself using TextInputLayout wrapper for EditText introduced in SupportLibrary v23.1

Just wrap your EditText with a TextInputLayout and set CounterEnabled to true and Set a counterMaxLength.

<android.support.design.widget.TextInputLayout
    android:id="@+id/textContainer"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    app:counterEnabled="true"
    app:counterMaxLength="20"
    >
    <EditText
        android:id="@+id/text"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:hint="Text Hint"
        />
</android.support.design.widget.TextInputLayout>

You'll get a material effect like this

You may use counterOverflowTextAppearance , counterTextAppearance to style the counter.

EDIT

From Android documentation.

The TextInputEditText class is provided to be used as a child of this layout. Using TextInputEditText allows TextInputLayout greater control over the visual aspects of any text input. An example usage is as so:

     <android.support.design.widget.TextInputLayout
         android:layout_width="match_parent"
         android:layout_height="wrap_content">

     <android.support.design.widget.TextInputEditText
             android:layout_width="match_parent"
             android:layout_height="wrap_content"
             android:hint="@string/form_username"/>

 </android.support.design.widget.TextInputLayout>

TextInputLayout TextInputEditText

Answer 4

Use android:maxLength="140"

That should work. :)

Hope that helps

Answer 5

try this

private TextWatcher textWatcher = new TextWatcher() {
    @Override
    public void beforeTextChanged(final CharSequence s, final int start, final int count, final int after) {
        editText.post(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                if (length < 100) {
                    if (count > 0 && after <= 0)/*remove emoij*/ {
                        length--;
                    } else if (count > after)/*remove text*/ {
                        length--;
                    } else if (count == 0 && after > 1)/*emoij*/ {
                        ++length;
                    } else if (count == 0 && after == 1)/*Text*/ {
                        ++length;
                    } else if (count > 0 && after > 1) {
                        ++length;
                    }
                    if (s.length() <= 0)
                        length = 0;
                    Log.w("MainActivity", " Length: " + length);
                } else {
                    if (count > 0 && after <= 0)/*remove emoij*/ {
                        length--;
                    } else if (count > after)/*remove text*/ {
                        length--;
                    }
                    Log.w("MainActivity", " Length: " + length);
                }

                if (length == 100) {
                    editText.setFilters(new InputFilter[]{new InputFilter.LengthFilter(s.length())});
                } else {
                    editText.setFilters(new InputFilter[]{});
                }
            }
        });
    }

    @Override
    public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {

    }

    @Override
    public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {

    }
};

`

Answer 6

Its very Simple Follow the instructions below:

====Add them to your Imports===

import android.text.Editable;
import android.text.TextWatcher;

=====Define this=====

private TextView sms_count;

==========Inside On Create=====

sms_count = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.textView2);


final TextWatcher txwatcher = new TextWatcher() {
   public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int count, int after) {
   }

   public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {

      sms_count.setText(String.valueOf(s.length()));
   }

   public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {
   }
};

sms_message.addTextChangedListener(txwatcher);