TextView - setting the text size programmatically doesn't seem to work

I am using Eclipse Indigo, testing on 2 emulators(2.2 and 3.0).

the code below shows what I am testing now, however setting the text size reveals nothing on the screen when trying to run the emulator.(if i comment out the text size the text shows up with a red color). I thought that somehow eclipse wasn't rebuilding the code but i added the line of code to add the blue background and that worked. I have tried setting the text size after setting the text with still no success. the code is below. thanks for your help! (disclaimer) - i am trying to stay away from xml. Being that i already know java i don't want to depend on that.

import android.app.Activity;
import android.graphics.Color;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class TestAndroidvs2Activity extends Activity {
/** Called when the activity is first created. */
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    TextView text = new TextView(this);
    text.setTextColor(Color.RED);
    text.setTextSize(2);    
    text.setBackgroundColor(Color.BLUE);
    text.setText("Hello Android");
 
    
    setContentView(text);
  }
}

the method TextView.setTextSize(int unit , float size); takes two parameters .

Try this :

text.setTextSize(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_SP,14);

refer this and this.

UPDATE: Now the setTextSize(float size) will set the text size automatically in "scaled pixel" units. no need to mention the COMPLEX_UNIT_SP manually. Refer to the documentation.

This fixed the issue for me. I got uniform font size across all devices.

 textView.setTextSize(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_PX,getResources().getDimension(R.dimen.font));

Currently, setTextSize(float size) method will work well so we don't need to use another method for change text size

android.widget.TextView.java source code

/**
 * Set the default text size to the given value, interpreted as "scaled
 * pixel" units.  This size is adjusted based on the current density and
 * user font size preference.
 *
 * <p>Note: if this TextView has the auto-size feature enabled than this function is no-op.
 *
 * @param size The scaled pixel size.
 *
 * @attr ref android.R.styleable#TextView_textSize
 */
@android.view.RemotableViewMethod
public void setTextSize(float size) {
    setTextSize(TypedValue.COMPLEX_UNIT_SP, size);
}

Example using

textView.setTextSize(20); // set your text size = 20sp

Text size 2 will be practically invisible. Try it with 14 at least. BTW, using xml has a lot of advantages and will make your life easier once you need to do anything more complex than 'Hello World'.

Please see this link for more information on setting the text size in code. Basically it says:

> public void setTextSize (int unit, float size) > > Since: API Level 1 Set the default text size to a given unit and > value. See TypedValue for the possible dimension units. Related XML > Attributes > > android:textSize Parameters > > unit The desired dimension unit.
> size The desired size in the given units.

In My Case Used this Method:

public static float pxFromDp(float dp, Context mContext) {
    return dp * mContext.getResources().getDisplayMetrics().density;
}

Here Set TextView's TextSize Programatically :

textView.setTextSize(pxFromDp(18, YourActivity.this));

Keep Enjoying:)

In Kotlin, you can use simply use like this,

textview.textSize = 20f