[FIXED] Setting up fontFamily of a TextView element created in kotlin

Issue

Hello I'm developing an android application for my University Mobile Device Tech. exam, the application talks to a REST API which gives some data in return on a specific route. So I have the necessity of creating UI elements dynamically on the spot with the data I get from the API for each user.

So I'm creating generic UI elements in Kotlin to be added programmatically to my activity once the user reach such point in the lifecycle of the application.

The generic UI element is composed as follows:

A CardView containing a ConstraintLayout which contains a TextView

I've struggled a little with setting up the parameters of the first two elements, now I'm stuck at the last element which I fail to set up correctly because I cannot find a way to set the property: android:fontFamily="sans-serif-medium"

I've created a reference in the designer tool of Android studio for the code I need to recreate in Kotlin as follows:

<TextView
                    android:id="@+id/placeholder"
                    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                    android:layout_marginTop="8dp"
                    android:layout_marginBottom="8dp"
                    android:fontFamily="sans-serif-medium"
                    android:text="@string/No_projects"
                    android:textAlignment="center"
                    android:textAppearance="@style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Medium"
                    android:textColor="@color/black"
                    android:textSize="20sp"
                    android:textStyle="bold"
                    android:typeface="normal"
                    app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
                    app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf="parent"
                    app:layout_constraintHorizontal_bias="0.5"
                    app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="parent"
                    app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent"
                    app:layout_constraintVertical_bias="0.5" />

This XML equal such declared parameters in the android studio design tools.

I had difficulties setting the textStyle and typeface properties in Kotlin, but found a (probably) solution here

Here instead there is the code fragment where i create and set up one-by-one all the parameters shown in the image/xml fragment:

val genericTextView = TextView(context)

genericTextView.layoutParams.height = ConstraintLayout.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT
genericTextView.layoutParams.width = ConstraintLayout.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT
(genericTextView.layoutParams as ViewGroup.MarginLayoutParams).setMargins(0, 8, 0, 8)
genericTextView.id = generateViewId()
genericTextView.tag = "NoProjectsText"
genericTextView.visibility = TextView.VISIBLE
genericTextView.text = R.string.No_projects.toString()
genericTextView.textSize = 20f
genericTextView.setTextColor(context.getColor(R.color.black))
genericTextView.textAlignment = TextView.TEXT_ALIGNMENT_CENTER
genericTextView.setTextAppearance(com.google.android.material.R.style.TextAppearance_AppCompat_Medium)
genericTextView.setTypeface(genericTextView.typeface, android.graphics.Typeface.BOLD)
// Constraints for inner text for elements cards
val connections2 = genericTextView.layoutParams as ConstraintLayout.LayoutParams
connections2.apply {
    connections2.endToEnd = ConstraintSet.PARENT_ID
    connections2.topToTop = ConstraintSet.PARENT_ID
    connections2.startToStart = ConstraintSet.PARENT_ID
    connections2.bottomToBottom = ConstraintSet.PARENT_ID
    connections2.horizontalBias = 0.5f
    connections2.verticalBias = 0.5f
}

I cannot find a property in TextView class that modifies or set the font family.

I hope that I've set the rest of the parameters correctly.

Thanks for any help or suggestion.

Solution

A simple solution (a bit devious) is to create a layout that contains the TextView with all styles in xml and call it in the code. Take a look bellow

layout_text_view.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<TextView
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:id="@+id/placeholder"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_marginTop="8dp"
    android:layout_marginBottom="8dp"
    android:fontFamily="sans-serif-medium"
    android:text="@string/No_projects"
    android:textAlignment="center"
    android:textAppearance="@style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Medium"
    android:textColor="@color/black"
    android:textSize="20sp"
    android:textStyle="bold"
    android:typeface="normal"
    app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintHorizontal_bias="0.5"
    app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent"
    app:layout_constraintVertical_bias="0.5" />

MainActivity.kt

val inflater = LayoutInflater.from(this)
val tv = inflater.inflate(R.layout.layout_text_view, null, false) as TextView
tv.text = "Some text"
tv.visibility = View.VISIBLE

Answered By - logancodemaker
Answer Checked By - Willingham (JavaFixing Volunteer)