How is StaticLayout used in Android?

StaticLayout (similar to DynamicLayout and BoringLayout) is used to layout and draw text on a canvas. It is commonly used for the following tasks:

• Measuring how big multiline text would be after being laid out.
• Drawing text on a bitmap image.
• Making a custom view that handles its own text layout (as opposed to making a composite view with an embedded TextView). TextView itself uses a StaticLayout internally.

Measuring text size

Single line

If you only have a single line of text, you can measure it with Paint or TextPaint.

String text = "This is some text."

TextPaint myTextPaint = new TextPaint();
mTextPaint.setAntiAlias(true);
mTextPaint.setTextSize(16 * getResources().getDisplayMetrics().density);
mTextPaint.setColor(0xFF000000);

float width = mTextPaint.measureText(text);
float height = -mTextPaint.ascent() + mTextPaint.descent();

Multiline

However, if there is line wrapping and you need the height, then it is better to use a StaticLayout. You provide the width and then you can get the height from the StaticLayout.

String text = "This is some text. This is some text. This is some text. This is some text. This is some text. This is some text.";

TextPaint myTextPaint = new TextPaint();
myTextPaint.setAntiAlias(true);
myTextPaint.setTextSize(16 * getResources().getDisplayMetrics().density);
myTextPaint.setColor(0xFF000000);

int width = 200;
Layout.Alignment alignment = Layout.Alignment.ALIGN_NORMAL;
float spacingMultiplier = 1;
float spacingAddition = 0;
boolean includePadding = false;

StaticLayout myStaticLayout = new StaticLayout(text, myTextPaint, width, alignment, spacingMultiplier, spacingAddition, includePadding);

float height = myStaticLayout.getHeight(); 

New API

If you want to use the newer StaticLayout.Builder (available from API 23), you can get your layout like this:

StaticLayout.Builder builder = StaticLayout.Builder.obtain(text, 0, text.length(), myTextPaint, width);
StaticLayout myStaticLayout = builder.build();

You can tack on addition settings using dot notation:

StaticLayout.Builder builder = StaticLayout.Builder.obtain(text, 0, text.length(), myTextPaint, width)
        .setAlignment(Layout.Alignment.ALIGN_NORMAL)
        .setLineSpacing(spacingAddition, spacingMultiplier)
        .setIncludePad(includePadding)
        .setMaxLines(5);
StaticLayout myStaticLayout = builder.build();

Writing text on an image

I may expand this more in the future, but for now see this post for an example of a method that uses StaticLayout and returns a bitmap.

Making a custom text handling View

Here is an example of a custom view using a StaticLayout. It behaves like a simple TextView. When the text is too long to fit on the screen, it automatically line wraps and increases its height.

Code

MyView.java

public class MyView extends View {

    String mText = "This is some text.";
    TextPaint mTextPaint;
    StaticLayout mStaticLayout;

    // use this constructor if creating MyView programmatically
    public MyView(Context context) {
        super(context);
        initLabelView();
    }

    // this constructor is used when created from xml
    public MyView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
        super(context, attrs);
        initLabelView();
    }

    private void initLabelView() {
        mTextPaint = new TextPaint();
        mTextPaint.setAntiAlias(true);
        mTextPaint.setTextSize(16 * getResources().getDisplayMetrics().density);
        mTextPaint.setColor(0xFF000000);

        // default to a single line of text
        int width = (int) mTextPaint.measureText(mText);
        mStaticLayout = new StaticLayout(mText, mTextPaint, (int) width, Layout.Alignment.ALIGN_NORMAL, 1.0f, 0, false);

        // New API alternate
        //
        // StaticLayout.Builder builder = StaticLayout.Builder.obtain(mText, 0, mText.length(), mTextPaint, width)
        //        .setAlignment(Layout.Alignment.ALIGN_NORMAL)
        //        .setLineSpacing(0, 1) // add, multiplier
        //        .setIncludePad(false);
        // mStaticLayout = builder.build();
    }

    @Override
    protected void onMeasure(int widthMeasureSpec, int heightMeasureSpec) {
        // Tell the parent layout how big this view would like to be
        // but still respect any requirements (measure specs) that are passed down.

        // determine the width
        int width;
        int widthMode = MeasureSpec.getMode(widthMeasureSpec);
        int widthRequirement = MeasureSpec.getSize(widthMeasureSpec);
        if (widthMode == MeasureSpec.EXACTLY) {
            width = widthRequirement;
        } else {
            width = mStaticLayout.getWidth() + getPaddingLeft() + getPaddingRight();
            if (widthMode == MeasureSpec.AT_MOST) {
                if (width > widthRequirement) {
                    width = widthRequirement;
                    // too long for a single line so relayout as multiline
                    mStaticLayout = new StaticLayout(mText, mTextPaint, width, Layout.Alignment.ALIGN_NORMAL, 1.0f, 0, false);
                }
            }
        }

        // determine the height
        int height;
        int heightMode = MeasureSpec.getMode(heightMeasureSpec);
        int heightRequirement = MeasureSpec.getSize(heightMeasureSpec);
        if (heightMode == MeasureSpec.EXACTLY) {
            height = heightRequirement;
        } else {
            height = mStaticLayout.getHeight() + getPaddingTop() + getPaddingBottom();
            if (heightMode == MeasureSpec.AT_MOST) {
                height = Math.min(height, heightRequirement);
            }
        }

        // Required call: set width and height
        setMeasuredDimension(width, height);
    }

    @Override
    protected void onDraw(Canvas canvas) {
        super.onDraw(canvas);
        // do as little as possible inside onDraw to improve performance

        // draw the text on the canvas after adjusting for padding
        canvas.save();
        canvas.translate(getPaddingLeft(), getPaddingTop());
        mStaticLayout.draw(canvas);
        canvas.restore();
    }
}

activity_main.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:id="@+id/activity_main"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:padding="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    tools:context="com.example.layoutpractice.MainActivity">

    <com.example.layoutpractice.MyView
        android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
        android:background="@color/colorAccent"
        android:padding="10dp"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>
</RelativeLayout>

Notes

• This, this, and this were useful in learning how to make a custom text handling view.

• See Creating a View Class if you would like to add custom attributes that can be set from code or xml.

Here is my explanation for drawing multiline text on canvas.

Declare Paint object. Use TextPaint which is an extension of Paint.

TextPaint textPaint;

Initialize Paint object. Set your own color, size etc.

textPaint = new TextPaint();
textPaint.setAntiAlias(true);
textPaint.setTextSize(16 * getResources().getDisplayMetrics().density);
textPaint.setColor(Color.YELLOW);

Add getTextHeight function

private float getTextHeight(String text, Paint paint) {
    Rect rect = new Rect();
    paint.getTextBounds(text, 0, text.length(), rect);
    return rect.height();
}

in your onDraw function put following lines like this

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

    String text = "This is a lengthy text. We have to render this properly. If layout mess users review will mess. Is that so ? ";

    Rect bounds = canvas.getClipBounds();

    StaticLayout sl = new StaticLayout(text, textPaint, bounds.width(),
            Layout.Alignment.ALIGN_CENTER, 1, 1, true);

    canvas.save();

    //calculate X and Y coordinates - In this case we want to draw the text in the
    //center of canvas so we calculate
    //text height and number of lines to move Y coordinate to center.
    float textHeight = getTextHeight(text, textPaint);
    int numberOfTextLines = sl.getLineCount();
    float textYCoordinate = bounds.exactCenterY() -
            ((numberOfTextLines * textHeight) / 2);

    //text will be drawn from left
    float textXCoordinate = bounds.left;

    canvas.translate(textXCoordinate, textYCoordinate);

    //draws static layout on canvas
    sl.draw(canvas);
    canvas.restore();
}

Courtesy goes to KOC's post