How to add icons to Preference

Question

I\'m making an app that extends the PreferenceActivity and I want to add an icon to each Preference.

I read a similar question, and this is the answer with more repu

Answer 1

The best and easiest way to achieve what you want is to make the icon a 9-patch icon with the right border as the stretchable area.

Let's say you have an EditTextPreference that you want to add an icon before the title and summary.

You create a MyEditTextPreference class that extends EditTextPreference and override the getView method to add your 9-patch icon as the background resource.

Here is a sample code that works:

public class MyEditTextPreference extends EditTextPreference {

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

    @Override
    public View getView(View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
        View view = super.getView(convertView, parent);
        view.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.my_icon);
        return view;
    }
}

Since the icon is a 9-patch, the icon will stretch the transparent part until the right end of the cell, placing the icon on the left side.

This is a very clean solution for your problem.