Setting Ellipsize on TextView reduces lines shown by one (instead of only ellipsizing last)

Question

when I am using TextView with singleLine="true" and ellipsize="end"(my top TextView), it works well

but in another TextView having more then 1 lines (in my case 3 lines in my bottom TextView), lines="3" and maxLines="3" and ellipsize="end", doesn't work properly.

When I DON'T put ellipsize="end" in tvDesc, it shows 3 line, which is OK. Here is code : XML :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent" >

    <ImageView
        android:id="@+id/imgv"
        android:layout_width="65dp"
        android:layout_height="80dp"
        android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
        android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
        android:src="@drawable/img1"
        android:scaleType="fitXY" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/tvTitle"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
        android:layout_toRightOf="@+id/imgv"
        android:background="@android:color/white"
        android:textColor="@android:color/black"
        android:text="Title testing line number and ellipsize at end"
        android:maxLines="1"
        android:singleLine="true"
        android:ellipsize="end"    <---  WORKS WELL
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceMedium" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/tvDesc"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_below="@+id/tvTitle"
        android:layout_toRightOf="@+id/imgv"
        android:layout_alignBottom="@+id/imgv"
        android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
        android:textSize="14dp"
        android:lines="3"
        android:maxLines="3"
                       <----------  WITHOUT ellipsize
        
        android:text="I wanna this textview of having 3 lines and ellipsize at END and at this time I am Testing for it. This TextView shows 3 lines WITHOUT ellipsize property, but shows only 2 Lines when ELLIPSIZE property is setted"
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceMedium" />

</RelativeLayout>

Above code shows TextView tvDesc with 3 Lines and No-Ellipsize. Here is Image :

enter image description here

But, I wanna ellipsize, so I uses followin code : XML :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent" >

    <ImageView
        android:id="@+id/imgv"
        android:layout_width="65dp"
        android:layout_height="80dp"
        android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
        android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
        android:src="@drawable/img1"
        android:scaleType="fitXY" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/tvTitle"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
        android:layout_toRightOf="@+id/imgv"
        android:background="@android:color/white"
        android:textColor="@android:color/black"
        android:text="Title testing line number and ellipsize at end"
        android:maxLines="1"
        android:singleLine="true"
        android:ellipsize="end"
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceMedium" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/tvDesc"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_below="@+id/tvTitle"
        android:layout_toRightOf="@+id/imgv"
        android:layout_alignBottom="@+id/imgv"
        android:layout_alignParentRight="true"
        android:textSize="14dp"
        android:lines="3"
        android:maxLines="3"
        android:ellipsize="end"    <------  WITH  ELLIPSIZE
        
        android:text="I wanna this textview of having 3 lines and ellipsize at END and at this time I am Testing for it. This TextView shows 3 lines WITHOUT ellipsize property, but shows only 2 Lines when ELLIPSIZE property is setted"
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceMedium" />

</RelativeLayout>

Which shows TextView tvDesc with only 2 lines and Ellipsize,

which is not properly dezired UI, as Followin: enter image description here

I wanna 3 lines in TextView tvDesc with ellipsize

CAN ANYONE HELP ME.?

I think you are running into a [known problem](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2160619/android-ellipsize-multiline-textview) — tiguchi, Jun 26 '12 at 15:22
I dont know exactly why this is happenning. But if you want to go with ellipsize then you keep its none property instead of end. — Narendra Pal, Jul 24 '12 at 05:24

score 47 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 19 '15 at 12:10

47

This is by far the simplest solution I've found and am currently using in deployment. Let me know if you need any other assistance!

Oh and remember to remove the android:ellipsize tag in your XML since you will be using the bottom code to automatically ellipsize at the end of 3 lines.

TextView snippet;
snippet.setText("loren ipsum dolor loren ipsum dolor loren ipsum dolor loren ipsum dolor loren ipsum dolor loren ipsum dolor loren ipsum dolor loren ipsum dolor loren ipsum dolor loren ipsum dolor loren ipsum dolor loren ipsum dolor loren ipsum dolor loren ipsum dolor ")
ViewTreeObserver vto = this.snippet.getViewTreeObserver();
vto.addOnGlobalLayoutListener(new OnGlobalLayoutListener() {

    @Override
    public void onGlobalLayout() {
        ViewTreeObserver obs = snippet.getViewTreeObserver();
        obs.removeGlobalOnLayoutListener(this);
        if (snippet.getLineCount() > 3) {
            int lineEndIndex = snippet.getLayout().getLineEnd(2);
            String text = snippet.getText().subSequence(0, lineEndIndex - 3) + "...";
            snippet.setText(text);
        }
    }
});

edited Feb 19 '15 at 12:10

Sufian

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answered Jul 28 '12 at 10:05

A Random Android Dev

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This a good solution, but there is an easier and cleaner way, see my answer. – Mickäel A. Jan 25 '13 at 14:27
1

Thanks this worked for me but it would be a lot easier if maxLines and ellipsize worked together. – draksia Mar 07 '13 at 16:09
Is it possible to add this inside a CustomTextView object to wrap all this logic and avoid adding it to every setText ? – neteinstein Jan 15 '14 at 11:57
This doesn't seem to work within a ListView. The listener is not triggered when list items are swapped out with new text. – Ali Gangji Apr 08 '14 at 20:05
1

@Vishwa Patel It gives wrong value when using it with html in textview using HTML.fromHtml. Can you plz help to work it with HTML? – Himanshu Dudhat Aug 11 '14 at 11:38
@Himanshu-HD, I've just tested at Android 5.0, Html.fromHtml works, but probably not in all cases. – CoolMind Nov 30 '15 at 11:14
To clarify: `snippet` is my pre-existing TextView, right? So in my case, if I'm getting `TextView notes`, I should use everything after the `setText` line and use `notes` in place of `snippet`? – Nic Dec 27 '17 at 22:53

score 19 · Answer 2 · edited Sep 08 '13 at 12:22

19

Just set android:maxLines and android:ellipsize.

<TextView
        android:id="@+id/tv_dua"
        android:ellipsize="end"
        android:maxLines="3"
        android:text="long text"
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceMedium" />

edited Sep 08 '13 at 12:22

nhahtdh

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answered Sep 08 '13 at 12:17

irscomp

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Except it doesn't work on versions of Honeycomb. What I get is the textview sized to 2 lines, but you get the tops of the letters on the third line and no ellipsis. – Mar 17 '14 at 03:05
Somewhere around KitKat or Lollipop this started working correctly (I forget the exact API level). Before that it still limits to the correct `maxLines` but doesn't include the ellipsis too. Still, I think it's somewhat reasonable these days to live with this since it's a much simpler alternative to the manual string manipulation in code. – Jon Adams Feb 15 '16 at 23:45

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 11 '15 at 10:51

2

Use the following to get a multiline textview with ellipsis on the last line :

android:maxLines="4"
android:ellipsize="end"
android:singleLine="false"

Replace 4 with the number of lines you want. Hope it helps !

answered Aug 11 '15 at 10:51

Shivam Bhalla

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Nov 24 '17 at 10:09

I tried it out with maxLines and ellipsize on Android 7 & 8.

android:maxLines="3"
android:ellipsize="end"

The preview shows 2 lines and on the third line "...".

But this seems to be a bug in the previewer.

On the device it just works fine, 3 lines with text, at the end of the third line "..."

score -1 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 25 '13 at 14:24

-1

Just use ellipsize combined with scrollHorizontally="true". Simple & clean.

It worked perfectly for me.

answered Jan 25 '13 at 14:24

Mickäel A.

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This just makes it single line which you can already do with the `singleLine` property – Ali Gangji Apr 08 '14 at 18:41
@AliGangji I don't think that was the case when I posted. Good to know – Mickäel A. Apr 08 '14 at 19:37
For me this solution works (Android 5.0) even for multiline TextView. But number of lines changes among TextViews (from 1 to maxLines). – CoolMind Nov 30 '15 at 09:30

score -2 · Answer 6 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

-2

Try it

tv.setSingleLine(false);
tv.setEllipsize(TextUtils.TruncateAt.END);
int n = 3; // the exact number of lines you want to display
tv.setLines(n);

refer Programmatically create TextView with ellipsis

edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

Community

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answered Sep 16 '12 at 20:19

Vinothkumar Arputharaj

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See the edit. I missed to add the two lines. tv.setSingleLine(false); and tv.setLines(n); – Vinothkumar Arputharaj Jun 19 '13 at 09:44

Setting Ellipsize on TextView reduces lines shown by one (instead of only ellipsizing last)

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