Android: Drawing a button as a spinner

Question

I have a custom android view that extends \'Button\' and acts as a multi-level spinner - when it is pressed it displays a series of spinner-like dialogs that allow a user to

Answer 1

This is how I managed to draw a button that is styled like a Spinner:

<Button
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="New Button"
    android:id="@+id/button"
    style="?android:attr/spinnerStyle" />

That's it!

Update

Something like the following should also work:

<style name="SpinnerButtonStyle" parent="android:Widget.Holo.Spinner">
    <item name="android:textColor">@color/entry_field</item>
    <item name="android:textAppearance">?android:attr/textAppearanceMedium</item>
</style>

For more styles take a peek into the SDK, e.g. sdk/platforms/android-18/data/res/values/styles.xml

Answer 2

This XML layout makes a button look like a spinner.

<!-- ****  Button styled to look like a spinner  **** -->
    <Button
        android:id="@+id/btn_category"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:background="@android:drawable/btn_dropdown"
        android:gravity="center_vertical|left" 
        android:textSize="18sp" />

Answer 3

This is my solution of drawing button like a spinner:

<Button
    android:id="@+id/my_button"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:paddingLeft="12dp"
    android:gravity="center_vertical|left"
    android:enabled="true"
    android:text="@string/my_button_text"
    android:textColor="@color/my_button_color"
    style="@style/MyButton" />

This is part of my res/values/styles.xml:

<style name="MyButton" parent="@android:style/Widget.Spinner">
</style>

This is part of my res/values-v14/styles.xml:

<style name="MyButton" parent="@android:style/Widget.DeviceDefault.Light.Spinner">
</style>

Answer 4

I found a solution to my question. In the constructor for my button I set the background drawable resource to be "btn_dropdown".

public DateAndTimePicker(Context context) {
    super(context);
    this.setBackgroundResource(android.R.drawable.btn_dropdown);
}

It looks the same as the spinner buttons, none of the button behavior has changed, and the button text centers correctly.

Answer 5

You can define the android:background attribute on your button to use a drawable that looks like the spinner. I did this by creating a 9-patch image for the spinner, putting it in my res/drawable folder, and then adding a style for my custom spinner button:

<style name="DialogSpinner">
  <item name="android:background">@drawable/dlg_spinner_background</item>
  <item name="android:textColor">#919090</item>
  <item name="android:layout_height">wrap_content</item>
  <item name="android:layout_width">wrap_content</item>
  <item name="android:layout_marginTop">2px</item>
  <item name="android:layout_marginBottom">2px</item>
</style>

For your button, add the style attribute to the XML layout for your layout:

<Button
  android:id="@+id/okButton"
  style="@style/DialogSpinner"
  android:textColor="#a6a2a2"
  android:text="something"
/>