Answering my own question...

And the winner is: set the `minEms` attribute (`android:minEms`) !!!

So &quot;[ems][1]&quot; it turns out refers to the size of the widest character, typically an &quot;M&quot;, get it? So setting minEms to an integer value say 3, on an EditText or TextView should ensure it&#39;s at least 3 characters wide. You can set the maxEms as well.

So Kyle&#39;s answer on this thread, although wrong, caused me to find the answer, so thanks Kyle.


  [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Em_%28typography%29

`ems`, contrary to popular beliefs (or at least from most thread about ems here), is not based from the width of a single &#39;M&#39;.

It was originally like that in typography, but in digital medium, including Android, its meaning was shifted to the size of the typeface used, or in other word, its height (excluding any padding for accents/diacritics).

So that means when you specify the `ems` for a TextView, it will used its `textSize` as a base and multiply it by the `ems` specified.

As a sample, if you set a 16sp TextView&#39;s `ems` to 4, its width will be 64sp wide. You can easily test it by using two TextView (with `includeFontPadding` set to false) side-by-side inside a ConstraintLayout (to leverage its `layout_constraintDimensionRatio`).

Most fonts do not set all character widths to be identical. Courier is perhaps the most used exception to this, but generally look at the difference between an i and an A, for example. This makes what your asking to do a bit of a problem.

Try using: `android:maxLength=&quot;3&quot;`

This will limit your text to a specific number of characters.

I&#39;m looking to execute a shell command in Go and get the resulting output as a string in my program. I saw the [Rosetta Code][1] version:

    package main
    import &quot;fmt&quot;
    import &quot;exec&quot;
     
    func main() {
      cmd, err := exec.Run(&quot;/bin/ls&quot;, []string{&quot;/bin/ls&quot;}, []string{}, &quot;&quot;, exec.DevNull, exec.PassThrough, exec.PassThrough)
      if (err != nil) {
        fmt.Println(err)
        return
      }
      cmd.Close()

But this doesn&#39;t capture the actual standard out or err in a way that I can programatically access - those still print out to the regular stdout / stderr. I saw that using Pipe as the out or err could help elsewhere, but no example of how to do so. Any ideas?


  [1]: http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Execute_a_system_command#Go

Exec a shell command in Go

I am starting out with Ruby on Rails. I am currently going through a tutorial where it says that I have to run a .rb file from IRB and that that will create a .xml file in my current directory.

My question is how do I run a .rb file  in IRB?  
And do I have to be in the directory where this .rb file lives when I run it in IRB?

I tried the following: just typing `irb` on the command line in the directory of the file. That starts an IRB session as far as I understand.  
Then I typed `irb &quot;filename.rb&quot;` which went through but didn&#39;t create anything in the current directory but at least it didn&#39;t give any errors.

I also tried a whole bunch of other stuff that plain gave me errors. So I don&#39;t think I can solve this myself and googling the matter didn&#39;t help at all.

I am running Leopard.

How to run a .rb file from IRB?

Really looking for an [answer to this][1].

Want to set the width of a TextView based on a number or characters. So if I want it to always be 3 characters wide, I could set that and it will adjust based on the textSize setting. Without this, I have to set a width to 50dip or something, which may or may not be right depending on the font size. 


  [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3188719/how-can-i-set-a-minimum-width-in-characters-for-a-textview

Set width of TextView in terms of characters

<p>Really looking for an <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3188719/how-can-i-set-a-minimum-width-in-characters-for-a-textview" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">answer to this</a>.</p>
<p>Want to set the width of a TextView based on a number or characters. So if I want it to always be 3 characters wide, I could set that and it will adjust based on the textSize setting. Without this, I have to set a width to 50dip or something, which may or may not be right depending on the font size.</p>


In my developer console people keep reporting an error that I cannot reproduce on any phone I have. One person left a message saying he gets it when they try to open the settings screen of my battery service. As you can see from the error it says that the receiver is not registered.

    java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to stop service .BatteryService@4616d688:  java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Receiver not registered: com.app.notifyme.BatteryService$BatteryNotifyReceiver@4616d9d0
    at android.app.ActivityThread.handleStopService(ActivityThread.java:3164)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.access$3900(ActivityThread.java:129)
    at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:2173)
    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:99)
    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:143)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:4701)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:521)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:860)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:618)
    at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)
    Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Receiver not registered:com..BatteryService$BatteryNotifyReceiver@4616d9d0
    at android.app.ActivityThread$PackageInfo.forgetReceiverDispatcher(ActivityThread.java:805)
    at android.app.ContextImpl.unregisterReceiver(ContextImpl.java:859)
    at android.content.ContextWrapper.unregisterReceiver(ContextWrapper.java:331)
    at com.app.notifyme.BatteryService.onDestroy(BatteryService.java:128)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.handleStopService(ActivityThread.java:3150)

I register is in my onCreate

    @Override
	public void onCreate(){
		super.onCreate();
		SharedPreferences pref = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(this);
		IntentFilter filter = new IntentFilter(Intent.ACTION_BATTERY_CHANGED);
		filter.addAction(Intent.ACTION_POWER_CONNECTED);
		filter.addAction(Intent.ACTION_POWER_DISCONNECTED);
		registerReceiver(batteryNotifyReceiver,filter);
		pref.registerOnSharedPreferenceChangeListener(this);
	}

Unregister in onDestroy and also with a preference listener

    	@Override
	public void onDestroy(){
		super.onDestroy();
		unregisterReceiver(batteryNotifyReceiver);
		
	}

and this is my receiver in the service

    private final class BatteryNotifyReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
	
		boolean connected;
		@Override
		public void onReceive(Context context, Intent intent) {
			
			SharedPreferences prefs = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(context); 
			SharedPreferences.Editor edit = prefs.edit();
			
				updatePreferences(prefs);
			
			level = intent.getIntExtra(BatteryManager.EXTRA_LEVEL, -1);
			

			
			if(intent.getAction().equals(Intent.ACTION_POWER_CONNECTED)){
				connected = true;
			}else if(intent.getAction().equals(Intent.ACTION_POWER_DISCONNECTED)){
				connected = false;
			}else if(intent.getAction().equals(Intent.ACTION_BATTERY_CHANGED)){
				
					if(level &lt; lastLevel){
						if(level &gt; 40){
							edit.putBoolean(&quot;first&quot;, false).commit();
							edit.putBoolean(&quot;second&quot;, false).commit();
							edit.putBoolean(&quot;third&quot;, false).commit();
                           edit.putBoolean(&quot;fourth&quot;,false).commit();							
							edit.putBoolean(&quot;fifth&quot;, false).commit();
						}
						if(level == 40){
							if(!first){
							notification(context,battColor,battBlink,battVib,battSound);
							
							edit.putBoolean(&quot;first&quot;, true).commit();
							}
						}else if(level == 30){
							if(!second){
							notification(context,battColor,battBlink,battVib,battSound);
							
							edit.putBoolean(&quot;second&quot;, true).commit();
							}
						}else if(level == 20){
							if(!third){
							notification(context,battColor,battBlink,battVib,battSound);
							
							edit.putBoolean(&quot;third&quot;, true).commit();
							}
						}else if(level == 15){
							if(!fourth){
							notification(context,battColor,battBlink,battVib,battSound);
							
							edit.putBoolean(&quot;fourth&quot;, true).commit();
							}
						}else if(level == 5){
							if(!fifth){
							notification(context,battColor,battBlink,battVib,battSound);
							
							edit.putBoolean(&quot;fifth&quot;, true).commit();
							}
						}
					lastLevel = temp;
				}
			}			
			
			Intent i = new Intent(context,BatteryNotifyReceiver.class);
			context.startService(i);
		}		
	}

any idea why they would be getting that error?

Receiver not registered exception error?

I have a background that I need fit in all screen sizes. I have three folders, `hdpi`, `ldpi` and `mdpi` for drawables, but in the emulator there isn&#39;t any referense to what resolution  `hdpi` is and what `mdpi` and `ldpi` are.


Android screen size HDPI, LDPI, MDPI

I am making an app where a user is uploading information and files to my server on a somewhat frequent basis. This is done in new threads through a dedicated uploader service. 

I know from this thread

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4238921/android-detect-whether-there-is-an-internet-connection-available

that you can check if there is an internet connection relatively easily. You can also get socketTimeoutExceptions to detect internet connectivity issues. All that is well and good, and lets me cache my uploads easily enough when the connection didn&#39;t work for whatever reason. 

My question though is how do I know when to reattempt the upload? Is there an event triggered when the connection is restored? Or am I stuck making a new thread that sleeps and then checks internet connectivity every 30 seconds or something? 

Any ideas would be appreciated!

Android event for internet connectivity state change

I&#39;ve been playing around with developing Android apps in Java for a while and am starting to get a handle on it.  However if I want to on start on an iOS version I need to code everything from scratch - which is, well, undesirable.

I was wondering on what cross platform solutions there are available and how well they work in practice.  I&#39;ve been thinking about web applications - perhaps using [jQuery Mobile][1] or [Titanium][2], or Adobe Flash/Flex/Air.  I also don&#39;t yet have a Mac, which I&#39;ll probably have to invest in.

So my Questions : 

1. What cross-platform development environments exist for iOS / Android (and/or other devices)?

2. What has your experience been with these tools? (this is what I&#39;m really keen to know)


  [1]: http://jquerymobile.com/
  [2]: http://www.appcelerator.com/products/titanium-mobile-application-development/

iOS / Android cross platform development

I have a `RelativeLayout` which contains two buttons. Which are overlapped on each other.

    &lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot; encoding=&quot;utf-8&quot;?&gt;
    &lt;RelativeLayout xmlns:android=&quot;http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android&quot;
        android:orientation=&quot;vertical&quot;
        android:layout_width=&quot;fill_parent&quot;
        android:layout_height=&quot;fill_parent&quot;
        android:background=&quot;#FFFFFF&quot;&gt;


    &lt;Button android:text=&quot;Play&quot;  
		android:id=&quot;@+id/play&quot;
	    android:layout_width=&quot;fill_parent&quot; 
    	android:layout_height=&quot;wrap_content&quot; 
 		android:layout_alignParentBottom = &quot;true&quot;&gt;
    &lt;/Button&gt;
	
	&lt;Button android:text=&quot;Stop &quot;
		android:id=&quot;@+id/stop&quot; 
		android:layout_width=&quot;fill_parent&quot; 
		android:layout_height=&quot;wrap_content&quot;
		android:layout_alignParentBottom = &quot;true&quot;&gt;
	&lt;/Button&gt;
	    
        
    &lt;/RelativeLayout&gt;


I want to programmatically show only one button at a time when its click event is called.

I tried it with :

    playButton.setVisibility(1);

but it does not worked. Following is an example what I am trying to do.

	playButton = (Button) findViewById(R.id.play);
	playButton.setVisibility(1);
	playButton.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
        @Override
	    public void onClick(View v) {
            //when play is clicked show stop button and hide play button

        }
    });



How to hide a button programmatically?

What is the meaning of this? I am guessing it is a browser hack, but I have not been able to find what exactly it does.


    width: 500px\9;


What is the significance of `\9`?

CSS \9 in width property

I have an element and need it&#39;s width without(!) vertical scrollbar.

Firebug tells me body width is 1280px.

Either of these work fine in Firefox:

    console.log($(&#39;.element&#39;).outerWidth() );
    console.log($(&#39;.element&#39;).outerWidth(true) );
    
    $detour = $(&#39;.child-of-element&#39;).offsetParent();
    console.log( $detour.innerWidth() );

They all return **1263px**, which is the value I&#39;m looking for.

However all other browser give me **1280px**. 


Is there a cross browser way to get a fullscreen width without(!) vertical scrollbar?


How to get screen width without (minus) scrollbar?

So I have this code here:

    &lt;table&gt;
        &lt;tr&gt;
            &lt;td width=&quot;200px&quot; valign=&quot;top&quot;&gt;
                &lt;div class=&quot;left_menu&quot;&gt;
                    &lt;div class=&quot;menu_item&quot;&gt;
                        &lt;a href=&quot;#&quot;&gt;Home&lt;/a&gt;
                    &lt;/div&gt;
                &lt;/div&gt;
            &lt;/td&gt;
            &lt;td width=&quot;1000px&quot; valign=&quot;top&quot;&gt;Content&lt;/td&gt;
        &lt;/tr&gt;
    &lt;/table&gt;

with the CSS

    .left_menu {
        background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #333333;
        border-radius: 5px 5px 5px 5px;
        font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;
        font-size: 12px;
        font-weight: bold;
        padding: 5px;
    }
    
    .menu_item {
        background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #CCCCCC;
        border-bottom: 1px solid #999999;
        border-radius: 5px 5px 5px 5px;
        border-top: 1px solid #FFFFCC;
        cursor: pointer;
        padding: 5px;
    }

It works fine on my browser and I have tested it in every browser both mac and PC, but someone is complaining that the `td` with the `width` of 200 keeps changing width. I have no idea what he is talking about. Does anyone know why he or she is seeing the width change on the `td`?

td widths, not working?

How can I make the table with 2 columns (cells) look like this:

 - First cell is shrink according to the content
 - The other cell fits the rest of the table (wider than both contents together)

Example:
    
    &lt;table style=&quot;width: 500px;&quot;&gt;
       &lt;tr&gt;
          &lt;td&gt;foo&lt;/td&gt;
          &lt;td&gt;bar&lt;/td&gt;
       &lt;/tr&gt;
    &lt;/table&gt;

I need the table to look like this:

    .___________________________________________________________________________.
    | foo | bar            &lt;a lot of space here&gt;                                |
    |_____|_____________________________________________________________________|
                               500 px total width

Notice: I don&#39;t know the width of &quot;foo&quot; so I cannot set &quot;50px&quot;, &quot;10%&quot; or something like that.

How to make table cell shrink according to the content?

So the alert gives undefined values for the width and height. I think the w and h values of the image from the img.onload calculation is not being passed to the values to return, or it may be returning w and h **before** the onload calculates them:

    function getMeta(url){
     var w; var h;
     var img=new Image;
     img.src=url;
     img.onload=function(){w=this.width; h=this.height;};
     return {w:w,h:h}    
    }

    // &quot;http://snook.ca/files/mootools_83_snookca.png&quot; //1024x678
    // &quot;http://shijitht.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/github.png&quot; //128x128
    
    var end = getMeta(&quot;http://shijitht.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/github.png&quot;);
    var w = end.w;
    var h = end.h;
    alert(w+&#39;width&#39;+h+&#39;height&#39;);

How can I have the alert show the correct width and height? 

http://jsfiddle.net/YtqXk/

Get width height of remote image from url

I programmatically create a list (no a ListView, just adding them to the parent) of such elements:

    	&lt;LinearLayout android:layout_width=&quot;wrap_content&quot; android:layout_height=&quot;wrap_content&quot; 
		android:orientation=&quot;vertical&quot; android:layout_weight=&quot;1&quot;&gt;
		&lt;TextView android:id=&quot;@+id/filiale_name&quot;
		android:layout_width=&quot;fill_parent&quot; android:layout_height=&quot;wrap_content&quot;/&gt;
		&lt;TextView android:id=&quot;@+id/lagerstand_text&quot;
		android:layout_width=&quot;fill_parent&quot; android:layout_height=&quot;wrap_content&quot;
		android:textSize=&quot;10sp&quot; android:textColor=&quot;@color/red&quot;/&gt;
	&lt;/LinearLayout&gt;

Also, I have defined some colors in values/colors.xml. As you see, the TextView with id &quot;lagerstand_text&quot; has set it&#39;s color to red by default. That works.

When creating the elements in Java, I do

    lagerstandText.setText(&quot;bla&quot;);

and for some elements also I do

    lagerstandText.setTextColor(R.color.red);

and other colors. While the elements on which I don&#39;t call setTextColor() are red, all others are grey, no matter which color I chose (even if it&#39;s the same red again).

Why is that?

TextView setTextColor() not working

How to set `TextView` style (bold or italic) within Java and without using the XML layout?

In other words, I need to write `android:textStyle` with Java.

How to set TextView textStyle such as bold, italic

I need the current `TextSize` of the `TextView` in `sp` units. 

But `getTextSize()` returns the size in `pixels`. So is there a way to `convert pixels to sp`?


Convert pixels to sp

I have the following Layout which does not work:

&lt;!-- language: lang-xml --&gt;

    &lt;LinearLayout 
        android:orientation=&quot;horizontal&quot; 
        android:layout_width=&quot;match_parent&quot; 
        android:id=&quot;@+id/experienceLayout&quot; 
        android:background=&quot;#ffffff&quot; 
        android:layout_height=&quot;match_parent&quot; 
        android:paddingLeft=&quot;6dp&quot; 
        android:paddingRight=&quot;6dp&quot; 
        android:paddingBottom=&quot;6dp&quot; 
        android:paddingTop=&quot;6dp&quot;&gt;
    
        &lt;TextView 
            android:layout_weight=&quot;1&quot; 
            android:id=&quot;@+id/experienceLabel&quot; 
            android:text=&quot;Experience&quot; 
            android:layout_height=&quot;wrap_content&quot; 
            android:textColor=&quot;#000000&quot; 
            android:layout_width=&quot;wrap_content&quot; 
            android:textStyle=&quot;bold&quot;&gt;
        &lt;/TextView&gt;
    
        &lt;TextView 
            android:id=&quot;@+id/experienceTextView&quot; 
            android:text=&quot;TextView&quot; 
            android:layout_height=&quot;wrap_content&quot; 
            android:textColor=&quot;#000000&quot; 
            android:layout_width=&quot;wrap_content&quot; 
            android:ellipsize=&quot;end&quot; 
            android:lines=&quot;1&quot; 
            android:maxLines=&quot;1&quot; 
            android:singleLine=&quot;true&quot; 
            android:fadeScrollbars=&quot;false&quot;&gt;
        &lt;/TextView&gt;
    
    &lt;/LinearLayout&gt;

How can I show ellipses on my TextView if it is greater than the 1 line?

I&#39;m having a hard time reseting the `maxLines` attribute of a `TextView` programmatically.
 
Just tried setting to `0` and it doesn&#39;t work. `-1` crashes the application. I could use a simpler workaround and set the `maxLines` to `5000` but I don&#39;t want to do that.

Any ideas how to do that?

*UPDATED*

Well, I&#39;ve found one problem.. I&#39;ve set the Ellipsize as well... I&#39;m just going to use the following workaround:

    TextView questionDetail = (TextView) mQuestionDetailHeader.findViewById(R.id.desc);
    
    questionDetail.setText(mCurrentQuestion.getQuestion());
    questionDetail.setMaxLines(Integer.MAX_VALUE); //As in the android sourcecode
    questionDetail.setEllipsize(null);

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	Fraggle	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Android	Fraggle	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Android	Andrei Stakov	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Android	mah	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Android	KyleM	View Answer on Stackoverflow

Set width of TextView in terms of characters

Android Problem Overview

Android Solutions

Solution 1 - Android

Solution 2 - Android

Solution 3 - Android

Solution 4 - Android

How to run a .rb file from IRB?

Exec a shell command in Go

Attributions