Setting EditText Cursor Color With Reflection Method

Question

I've been using a reflection method to set my EditText's cursor colors programmatically which I found from this answer (I also tried this answer). However, after some recent updates, can't remember exactly when, that method no longer works, I assume that Android has probably changed something in the TextView class. Anyways, can someone help me with this? Are there now new field names for mCursorDrawableRes and mCursorDrawable, or is that whole method invalid and needs to be implemented another way now?

Update: I just found out that this method stopped working only on Android P, on the previous versions, it still works.

Update 2: I solved problem myself, check the answer if you are stuck as well.

Answer 1

OK, after digging into the Android Pie Source Code, I found out that Google has changed mCursorDrawable to mDrawableForCursor, and also changed its type from a two element Drawable array to simply Drawable, so I made some changes based on the original reflection method, and now it works for Android P:

public static void setEditTextCursorColor(EditText editText, int color) {
    try {
        // Get the cursor resource id
        Field field = TextView.class.getDeclaredField("mCursorDrawableRes");
        field.setAccessible(true);
        int drawableResId = field.getInt(editText);

        // Get the editor
        field = TextView.class.getDeclaredField("mEditor");
        field.setAccessible(true);
        Object editor = field.get(editText);

        // Get the drawable and set a color filter
        Drawable drawable = ContextCompat.getDrawable(editText.getContext(), drawableResId);
        drawable.setColorFilter(color, PorterDuff.Mode.SRC_IN);

        // Set the drawables
        if(Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= 28){//set differently in Android P (API 28)
            field = editor.getClass().getDeclaredField("mDrawableForCursor");
            field.setAccessible(true);
            field.set(editor, drawable);
        }else {
            Drawable[] drawables = {drawable, drawable};
            field = editor.getClass().getDeclaredField("mCursorDrawable");
            field.setAccessible(true);
            field.set(editor, drawables);
        }

        //optionally set the "selection handle" color too
        setEditTextHandleColor(editText, color);
    } catch (Exception ignored) {}
}

Side note, I really wish Google could just add a public method like setCursorDrawable() or something like that, that would've been much easier.

Answer 2

Unfortunately, Google have not exposed xml attributes to tint, or methods to set, the drawables for these even in the compatability libraries, so currently the only way to dynamically set them is via reflection as described.

However, you can set the drawables in xml, and if you just want to tint the existing material design drawables this can be done by tinting xml for the text select handles as they are bitmap drawables, but the cursor drawable is an inset drawable, so will have to be recreated from the source code.

The drawables used are:

R.drawable.abc_text_select_handle_left_mtrl_light
R.drawable.abc_text_select_handle_middle_mtrl_light
R.drawable.abc_text_select_handle_right_mtrl_light
R.drawable.abc_text_cursor_material

You can create tinted versions of the text select handle drawables like this:

<bitmap xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:src="@drawable/abc_text_select_handle_left_mtrl_light"
    android:tint="@color/my_text_select_handle_color" />

<bitmap xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:src="@drawable/abc_text_select_handle_middle_mtrl_light"
    android:tint="@color/my_text_select_handle_color" />

<bitmap xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:src="@drawable/abc_text_select_handle_right_mtrl_light"
    android:tint="@color/my_text_select_handle_color" />

The cursor drawable can be recreated from the source code like this:

<inset xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
       android:inset="2dp">
  <shape
      android:tint="@color/my_text_cursor_color"
      android:shape="rectangle">
    <size
        android:height="2dp"
        android:width="2dp" />
    <solid
        android:color="@color/white" />
  </shape>
</inset>

Place these in the drawables folder and reference them in your AppCompatEditText xml definition using:

android:textCursorDrawable
android:textSelectHandle
android:textSelectHandleLeft
android:textSelectHandleRight

and voila, custom colored cursor and select handles that exactly match the default material design version that avoids reflection so won't cause warnings or errors.