How can I shrink a button to fit its text?

Question

Is there a way to take a programmatically-created button (not defined in XML) and shrink it so it matches the size of its text?

Essentially I want these buttons to be much smaller:

I have tried setting minWidth and minHeight to 0, to no avail:

val btn = Button(view.context)
btn.text = getTranslationLabel(t)
btn.minWidth = 0
btn.minHeight = 0
translationsHolder.addView(btn)

Size is determined mostly by the `LayoutParams` that you could be passing in [the second parameter to `addView()`](https://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/ViewGroup#addView(android.view.View,%20android.view.ViewGroup.LayoutParams)). The type of the `LayoutParams` subclass would be based on the type of the `ViewGroup` you are adding it to. In this case, you are probably also getting some minimum padding created by the button background; you may need to switch to a custom background. — CommonsWare, Sep 02 '20 at 00:16
@CommonsWare in my full code I actually have the background set to null, I put the background back for the sake of the screenshot, but good to know otherwise. I’ll try your other suggestions, thanks! — knpwrs, Sep 02 '20 at 10:55
@MuddassirAhmed yes, I tried setting padding to 0 to no avail. — knpwrs, Sep 02 '20 at 10:55

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 02 '20 at 12:41

1

So after some experimentation and searching was able to find this answer and it works https://stackoverflow.com/a/41525925/5841416. You need to set both minHeight and minimumHeight attributes.

button.minWidth = 0
button.minHeight = 0

button.minimumWidth = 0
button.minimumHeight = 0

answered Sep 02 '20 at 12:41

Muddassir Ahmed

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4
19

1

This worked in combination with `setPadding(0, 0, 0, 0)`. Thank you! – knpwrs Sep 02 '20 at 22:00

How can I shrink a button to fit its text?

1 Answers1