change textSize with different language locale

Question

I have added spanish and french to my app but some of the wording is longer in spanish then english. how can i change the textsize when the values-es/string.xml file is accessed

Answer 1

You can use the dimens.xml resource file for this purpose. In your case you'll probably want to create a file called res/values-es/dimens.xml , and possibly also a -fr version. You can specifify the default values in res/values/dimens.xml (or res/values-en/dimens.xml , if you want to be more specific).

Example grabbed from the More Resource Types section on developer.android.com:

dimens.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <dimen name="textview_height">25dp</dimen>
    <dimen name="textview_width">150dp</dimen>
    <dimen name="ball_radius">30dp</dimen>
    <dimen name="font_size">16sp</dimen>
</resources> 

Apply in xml

<TextView
    android:layout_height="@dimen/textview_height"
    android:layout_width="@dimen/textview_width"
    android:textSize="@dimen/font_size"/>

Or in code

float fontSize = getResources().getDimension(R.dimen.font_size);

There are also solutions here on SO that use a iterative/recursive process to shrink the text size of a TextView to 'fit' in its bounding box (using a custom view), but I'd say above is a more robust approach, especially if you're considering adding more languages in the future.

Answer 2

The above explanations are correct, but they don't fully explain how to do it.

When you open your project in Android Studio, then it automatically shows this project in the " Android " mode. You need to click on the "Android" tab in the top, left corner of Android Studio and select " Project ". Then you need to go into " app>src>main>res ". Then you need to right-click on the " res " folder and from the menu that comes up, select " New>Android resource directory ". A dialogue will come up, and for Directory name: type in values-es and click OK .

This will create a folder for all Spanish Locale values. And then you can right-click on this values-es folder to create dimens.xml , string.xml , color.xml , ...etc. files that will be used whenever Spanish Locale is selected in the phone.

If you've already created a string.xml file for Spanish Locale through the graphical user interface, then the values-es folder with string.xml file will already be in the Project, when you go there. And in this case, you just need to right-click on the values-es folder to create the dimens.xml file there for Spanish Locale.

Answer 3

You would need to specify a different layout file in layout-es. That way when Android pulls from values-es/string.xml, it'll load the different layout-es/yourfile.xml. That layout file can then specify a theme, style, or text size on the views.