How do I display the current value of an Android P

Question

This must come up very often.

When the user is editing preferences in an Android app, I'd like them to be able to see the currently set value of the preference in the Preference summary.

Example: if I have a Preference setting for "Discard old messages" that specifies the number of days after which messages need to be cleaned up. In the PreferenceActivity I'd like the user to see:

"Discard old messages" <- title

"Clean up messages after x days" <- summary where x is the current Preference value

Extra credit: make this reusable, so I can easily apply it to all my preferences regardless of their type (so that it work with EditTextPreference, ListPreference etc. with minimal amount of coding).

Answer 1

Android documentation says one can use a String formatting marker in getSummary():

If the summary has a String formatting marker in it (i.e. "%s" or "%1$s"), then the current entry value will be substituted in its place.

Simply specifying android:summary="Clean up messages after %s days" in ListPreference xml declaration worked for me.

Note: This only works for ListPreference.

Answer 2

Here is a working solution for all EditTextPreferences inside of a PreferenceFragment based on @tdeveaux answer:

public class SettingsFragment extends PreferenceFragment implements SharedPreferences.OnSharedPreferenceChangeListener {
    private static final String TAG = "SettingsFragment";

    @Override
    public void onCreate (Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.preferences);
        getPreferenceScreen().getSharedPreferences().registerOnSharedPreferenceChangeListener(this);
    }

    @Override
    public void onResume () {
        super.onResume();

        for (int i = 0; i < getPreferenceScreen().getPreferenceCount(); ++i) {
            Preference preference = getPreferenceScreen().getPreference(i);
            updatePreference(preference);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void onSharedPreferenceChanged (SharedPreferences sharedPreferences, String key) {
        updatePreference(findPreference(key));
    }

    private void updatePreference (Preference preference) {
        if (preference instanceof EditTextPreference) {
            EditTextPreference editTextPreference = (EditTextPreference)preference;
            editTextPreference.setSummary(editTextPreference.getText());
        }
    }
}

Answer 3

I found this way to make EditTextPreference from support library handle "%s" in summary (as ListPreference already handles):

public class EditTextPreference extends android.support.v7.preference.EditTextPreference {
    public EditTextPreference(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
        super(context, attrs);
    }

    @Override
    public void setText(String text) {
        super.setText(text);
        notifyChanged();
    }

    @Override
    public CharSequence getSummary() {
        String text = super.getText();
        String summary = super.getSummary().toString();
        return String.format(summary, text == null ? "" : text);
    }
}

In xml it will look like this:

<com.example.yourapp.EditTextPreference
    android:defaultValue="1"
    android:key="cleanup_period"
    android:summary="Clean up messages after %s days"
    android:title="Clean up period" />

Answer 4

My solution is to create a custom EditTextPreference, used in XML like this: <com.example.EditTextPreference android:title="Example Title" />

EditTextPreference.java:-

package com.example;

import android.content.Context;
import android.util.AttributeSet;

public class EditTextPreference extends android.preference.EditTextPreference
{
    public EditTextPreference(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle)
    {
        super(context, attrs, defStyle);
    }

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

    public EditTextPreference(Context context)
    {
        super(context, null);
    }

    @Override
    protected void onDialogClosed(boolean positiveResult)
    {
        super.onDialogClosed(positiveResult);

        setSummary(getSummary());
    }

    @Override
    public CharSequence getSummary()
    {
        return getText();
    }
}

Answer 5

After several hours I've been spent to solve such problem I've implemented this code:

[UPDATE: the final version listing]

public class MyPreferencesActivity extends PreferenceActivity {
    ...
    ListPreference m_updateList;
    ...
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        addPreferencesFromResource(R.xml.preferences);

        m_updateList = (ListPreference) findPreference(getString(R.string.pref_update_interval_key));
        String currentValue = m_updateList.getValue();
        if (currentValue == null) {
            m_updateList.setValue((String)m_updateList.getEntryValues()[DEFAULT_UPDATE_TIME_INDEX]);
            currentValue = m_updateList.getValue();
        }
        updateListSummary(currentValue);    

        m_updateList.setOnPreferenceChangeListener(new OnPreferenceChangeListener() {
            @Override
            public boolean onPreferenceChange(Preference preference, Object newValue) {
                updateListSummary(newValue.toString());
                return true;
            }       
        });     
    }

    private void updateListSummary(String newValue) {
        int index = m_updateList.findIndexOfValue(newValue);
        CharSequence entry = m_updateList.getEntries()[index];
        m_updateList.setSummary(entry);
    }
}

That was the only solution that worked for me fine. Before I've tried to subclass from ListPreferences and to implement android:summary="bla bla bla %s". Neither worked.

Answer 6

This is the code you need to set the summary to the chosen value. It also sets the values on startup and respects the default values, not only on change. Just change "R.layout.prefs" to your xml-file and extend the setSummary-method to your needs. It actually is only handling ListPreferences, but it is easy to customize to respect other Preferences.

package de.koem.timetunnel;

import android.content.SharedPreferences;
import android.content.SharedPreferences.OnSharedPreferenceChangeListener;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.preference.ListPreference;
import android.preference.Preference;
import android.preference.PreferenceActivity;
import android.preference.PreferenceGroup;

public class Prefs 
    extends PreferenceActivity 
    implements OnSharedPreferenceChangeListener {

   @Override
   protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
       super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

       this.addPreferencesFromResource(R.layout.prefs);
       this.initSummaries(this.getPreferenceScreen());

       this.getPreferenceScreen().getSharedPreferences()
           .registerOnSharedPreferenceChangeListener(this);
    }

  /**
    * Set the summaries of all preferences
    */
  private void initSummaries(PreferenceGroup pg) {
      for (int i = 0; i < pg.getPreferenceCount(); ++i) {
          Preference p = pg.getPreference(i);
          if (p instanceof PreferenceGroup)
              this.initSummaries((PreferenceGroup) p); // recursion
          else
              this.setSummary(p);
      }
  }

  /**
    * Set the summaries of the given preference
    */
  private void setSummary(Preference pref) {
      // react on type or key
      if (pref instanceof ListPreference) {
          ListPreference listPref = (ListPreference) pref;
          pref.setSummary(listPref.getEntry());
      }
  }

  /**
    * used to change the summary of a preference
    */
  public void onSharedPreferenceChanged(SharedPreferences sp, String key) {
     Preference pref = findPreference(key);
     this.setSummary(pref);
  }

  // private static final String LOGTAG = "Prefs";
}

koem