Vertical (rotated) label in Android

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I need 2 ways of showing vertical label in Android:

  1. Horizontal label turned 90 degrees counterclockwise (letters on the side)
  2. Horizontal label with letters one under the other (like a store sign)

Do I need to develop custom widgets for both cases (one case), can I make TextView to render that way, and what would be a good way to do something like that if I need to go completely custom?

10 Answers

You can just add to your TextView or other View xml rotation value. This is the easiest way and for me working correct.

<LinearLayout
    android:rotation="-90"
    android:layout_below="@id/image_view_qr_code"
    android:layout_above="@+id/text_view_savva_club"
    android:layout_marginTop="20dp"
    android:gravity="bottom"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:orientation="vertical">

   <TextView
       android:textColor="@color/colorPrimary"
       android:layout_marginStart="40dp"
       android:textSize="20sp"
       android:layout_width="wrap_content"
       android:layout_height="wrap_content"
       android:text="Дмитриевский Дмитрий Дмитриевич"
       android:maxLines="2"
       android:id="@+id/vertical_text_view_name"/>
    <TextView
        android:textColor="#B32B2A29"
        android:layout_marginStart="40dp"
        android:layout_marginTop="15dp"
        android:textSize="16sp"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:id="@+id/vertical_text_view_phone"
        android:text="+38 (000) 000-00-00"/>

</LinearLayout>

Result

My initial approach to rendering vertical text inside a vertical LinearLayout was as follows (this is Kotlin, in Java use setRoatation etc.):

val tv = TextView(context)
tv.gravity = Gravity.CENTER
tv.rotation = 90F
tv.height = calcHeight(...)
linearLabels.addView(tv)

approach #1

As you can see the problem is that the TextView goes vertically but still treats its width as if it were oriented horizontally! =/

Thus approach #2 consisted of additionally switching width and height manually to account for this:

tv.measure(0, 0)
// tv.setSingleLine()
tv.width = tv.measuredHeight
tv.height = calcHeight(...)

approach #2

This however resulted in the labels wrapping around to the next line (or being cropped if you setSingleLine) after the relatively short width. Again, this boils down to confusing x with y.

My approach #3 was thus to wrap the TextView in a RelativeLayout. The idea is to allow the TextView any width it wants by extending it far to the left and the right (here, 200 pixels in both directions). But then I give the RelativeLayout negative margins to ensure it is drawn as a narrow column. Here is my full code for this screenshot:

val tv = TextView(context)
tv.text = getLabel(...)
tv.gravity = Gravity.CENTER
tv.rotation = 90F

tv.measure(0, 0)
tv.width = tv.measuredHeight + 400  // 400 IQ
tv.height = calcHeight(...)

val tvHolder = RelativeLayout(context)
val lp = LinearLayout.LayoutParams(LinearLayout.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT,
    LinearLayout.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT)
lp.setMargins(-200, 0, -200, 0)
tvHolder.layoutParams = lp
tvHolder.addView(tv)
linearLabels.addView(tvHolder)

val iv = ImageView(context)
iv.setImageResource(R.drawable.divider)
linearLabels.addView(iv)

approach #3

As a general tip, this strategy of having a view "hold" another view has been really useful for me in positioning things in Android! For example, the info window below the ActionBar uses the same tactic!

For text appearing like a store sign just insert newlines after each character, e.g. "N\nu\nt\ns" will be:

store sign example

I liked @kostmo's approach. I modified it a bit, because I had an issue - cutting off vertically rotated label when I set its params as WRAP_CONTENT. Thus, a text was not fully visible.

This is how I solved it:

import android.annotation.TargetApi;
import android.content.Context;
import android.graphics.Canvas;
import android.graphics.Paint;
import android.graphics.Rect;
import android.graphics.Typeface;
import android.os.Build;
import android.text.TextPaint;
import android.util.AttributeSet;
import android.util.Log;
import android.util.TypedValue;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class VerticalLabelView extends View
{
    private final String LOG_TAG           = "VerticalLabelView";
    private final int    DEFAULT_TEXT_SIZE = 30;
    private int          _ascent           = 0;
    private int          _leftPadding      = 0;
    private int          _topPadding       = 0;
    private int          _rightPadding     = 0;
    private int          _bottomPadding    = 0;
    private int          _textSize         = 0;
    private int          _measuredWidth;
    private int          _measuredHeight;
    private Rect         _textBounds;
    private TextPaint    _textPaint;
    private String       _text             = "";
    private TextView     _tempView;
    private Typeface     _typeface         = null;
    private boolean      _topToDown = false;

    public VerticalLabelView(Context context)
    {
        super(context);
        initLabelView();
    }

    public VerticalLabelView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs)
    {
        super(context, attrs);
        initLabelView();
    }

    public VerticalLabelView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyleAttr)
    {
        super(context, attrs, defStyleAttr);
        initLabelView();
    }

    @TargetApi(Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP)
    public VerticalLabelView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyleAttr, int defStyleRes)
    {
        super(context, attrs, defStyleAttr, defStyleRes);
        initLabelView();
    }

    private final void initLabelView()
    {
        this._textBounds = new Rect();
        this._textPaint = new TextPaint();
        this._textPaint.setAntiAlias(true);
        this._textPaint.setTextAlign(Paint.Align.CENTER);
        this._textPaint.setTextSize(DEFAULT_TEXT_SIZE);
        this._textSize = DEFAULT_TEXT_SIZE;
    }

    public void setText(String text)
    {
        this._text = text;
        requestLayout();
        invalidate();
    }

    public void topToDown(boolean topToDown)
    {
        this._topToDown = topToDown;
    }

    public void setPadding(int padding)
    {
        setPadding(padding, padding, padding, padding);
    }

    public void setPadding(int left, int top, int right, int bottom)
    {
        this._leftPadding = left;
        this._topPadding = top;
        this._rightPadding = right;
        this._bottomPadding = bottom;
        requestLayout();
        invalidate();
    }

    public void setTextSize(int size)
    {
        this._textSize = size;
        this._textPaint.setTextSize(size);
        requestLayout();
        invalidate();
    }

    public void setTextColor(int color)
    {
        this._textPaint.setColor(color);
        invalidate();
    }

    public void setTypeFace(Typeface typeface)
    {
        this._typeface = typeface;
        this._textPaint.setTypeface(typeface);
        requestLayout();
        invalidate();
    }

    @Override
    protected void onMeasure(int widthMeasureSpec, int heightMeasureSpec)
    {
        try
        {
            this._textPaint.getTextBounds(this._text, 0, this._text.length(), this._textBounds);

            this._tempView = new TextView(getContext());
            this._tempView.setPadding(this._leftPadding, this._topPadding, this._rightPadding, this._bottomPadding);
            this._tempView.setText(this._text);
            this._tempView.setTextSize(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_PX, this._textSize);
            this._tempView.setTypeface(this._typeface);

            this._tempView.measure(ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT);

            this._measuredWidth = this._tempView.getMeasuredHeight();
            this._measuredHeight = this._tempView.getMeasuredWidth();

            this._ascent = this._textBounds.height() / 2 + this._measuredWidth / 2;

            setMeasuredDimension(this._measuredWidth, this._measuredHeight);
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            setMeasuredDimension(widthMeasureSpec, heightMeasureSpec);
            Log.e(LOG_TAG, Log.getStackTraceString(e));
        }
    }

    @Override
    protected void onDraw(Canvas canvas)
    {
        super.onDraw(canvas);

        if (!this._text.isEmpty())
        {
            float textHorizontallyCenteredOriginX = this._measuredHeight / 2f;
            float textHorizontallyCenteredOriginY = this._ascent;

            canvas.translate(textHorizontallyCenteredOriginY, textHorizontallyCenteredOriginX);

            float rotateDegree = -90;
            float y = 0;

            if (this._topToDown)
            {
                rotateDegree = 90;
                y = this._measuredWidth / 2;
            }

            canvas.rotate(rotateDegree);
            canvas.drawText(this._text, 0, y, this._textPaint);
        }
    }
}

If you want to have a text from top to down, then use topToDown(true) method.

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