Best practice to show big text data in an android view?

Question

In my information area of my app I want to show a brief description of my app. For that I need to create a view with a lot of text. What is the best practice for that ? Actu

Answer 1

You are probably looking for a typical "About Screen" with simple scrollable text that may be formatted using HTML.

Firstly, here is the layout /layout/about_layout.xml. You don't need to wrap your view in an extra LinearLayout.

Afterwards, add the following to your /values/strings.xml:

  
Your description text, changelog, licences etc... ]]>

Finally, use the layout in your AboutActivity.java, display the string HTML-formatted and enrich it with some auto-updated information, such as your version number.

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    setContentView(R.layout.about_layout);

    String versionName = "";
    try {
        PackageInfo pinfo = getPackageManager().getPackageInfo(getPackageName(), 0);
        versionName = pinfo.versionName;
    } catch (NameNotFoundException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

    TextView aboutTextView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.about_text_view);

    aboutText = Html.fromHtml("
Your App Name, Version " + versionName + "
"
            + getString(R.string.about_text));
    aboutTextView.setText(aboutText);
}

That's how I deal with the About Screen in my app. Sorry for this answer might be a bit over the top, but I think it's a commonly requested pattern.