TextView android:ellipsize=“marquee” not working as expected

Question

I have some custom elements in a ListView and each element is, up to know, just a TextView in a LinearLayout. I would like the text inside the TextView to be a single line scrolling horizontally when the text is too long. I read many posts on this and I came up with a solution that was supposed to work, but instead of having the full text scrolling I have the text cut to the length of the containing View and ended with the three dots. I don't want the three dots but the entire text needs to be scrolled.

This is the layout of the items in the list (list_item.xml)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/listItem"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:background="@drawable/list_item_selector"
    android:orientation="horizontal"
    android:paddingBottom="7dp"
    android:paddingLeft="15dp"
    android:paddingTop="7dp" >

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/listText"
        style="@style/Text_View_Style_White"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:ellipsize="marquee"
        android:focusableInTouchMode="true"
        android:marqueeRepeatLimit="marquee_forever" 
        android:padding="3dp"

        android:selectAllOnFocus="true"
        android:singleLine="true"
        android:textColor="@drawable/list_item_text_selector" />


</LinearLayout>

I tried also with android:focusable="true", android:scrollHorizontally="true" and android:maxLines="1" attributes but none of them is working. In the getView() method of the adapter (which extends a BaseAdapter) I use the setSelected(true) method on the TextView, before returning the View.

I can't figure out what the problem is. Any help will be highly appreciated.

Answer 1

I had the same problem today and was able to figure it out. None of the listed solutions here worked so I thought I'd share what fixed it for me.

TL;DR: If you are dynamically setting the text of the TextView, try setting the required "marquee" properties in code instead of in the layout xml file.

Longer version: In my case, I had a GridView with an adapter and a TextView in each item. Some of the item's had text that was too long to fit in its "cell" of the grid, and thus I wanted all items that were too long to scroll a few times. Being that the TextView is in a GridView with an adapter, the text was obviously being set in code, from the current item of the adapter.

Through much painful debugging, I finally had the idea to set all of the marquee settings in code instead of in the layout xml file. This caused the 3 dots (...) to finally go away from the TextView and begin scrolling instead.

Here's what my layout file looks like now: (note that none of the properties listed above are set here)

<TextView
android:text="Placeholder"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:textSize="16dp"
android:id="@+id/name"
/>

And here's what my adapter code looks like:

nameView.setText(name);
nameView.setEllipsize(TextUtils.TruncateAt.MARQUEE);
nameView.setSingleLine(true);
nameView.setMarqueeRepeatLimit(5);
nameView.setSelected(true);

Answer 2

Key is here to do setSelected(true); on text view.. Of course

android:ellipsize="marquee"
android:scrollHorizontally="true"

need to be set in xml as well. Without all of this marquee will not happen. Ever.

Answer 3

As @iDroid Explorer pointed out, posting and accepting the answer can be of help to someone else. Adapting from my reply to Tom's comment:

I found the solution to my problem. After some attempts I've realized that the problem was the android:selectAllOnFocus="true" line (Read @Tom's explanation for probabale reason). I just removed that line and now everything is working very well, the text is complete and scrolling like desired when it is too long for the containing view.

Answer 4

Either put your LinearLayout or your TextView inside of a HorizontalScrollView. This will allow the text to be displayed in full and allow for scrolling right and left.

Answer 5

Try setting your layout_width to "match_parent". The TextView needs a specific width for the ellipsis to work and won't work with "wrap_content".

Answer 6

I was Facing Same Issue With my textView Now got reason why it is showing ...at the end of text.!

               <TextView
                android:id="@+id/MarqueeText"
                android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:layout_centerVertical="true"
                android:layout_marginLeft="2dp"
                android:ellipsize="marquee"
                android:singleLine="true"
                android:maxLines="1"
                android:textColor="@color/text_gray"
                android:textSize="14sp"
                android:text="START | lunch 20.00 | Dinner 60.00 | Travel 60.00 | Doctor 5000.00 | lunch 20.00 | Dinner 60.00 | Travel 60.00 | Doctor 5000.00 | END" />

and After Initialization In my Activity

MarqueeText.setSelected(true);

I found the solution to my problem. After some attempts I've realized that the problem was the android:textIsSelectable="true". I just removed that line and now everything is working very well, the text is complete and scrolling like desired when it is too long for the containing view.