Capitalize the first letter in Android TextView using XML

Question

I read plenty questions about that, for example:

Still, I didn't find a way to just capitalize the first letter of TextView text using XML. So far it looks like it's impossible but it is hardly believable to me.

So, how to capitalize the first letter of Android TextView text using XML?

@MarkusKauppinen That's not a duplicate since Op stated clearly that he has already look at this question, but he want to do it using XML and not Java — vincrichaud, Mar 19 '19 at 08:53
@vincrichaud True, [How to change First letter of each word to Uppercase in Textview xml](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/35177726/how-to-change-first-letter-of-each-word-to-uppercase-in-textview-xml/35177919) would be closer. — Markus Kauppinen, Mar 19 '19 at 09:53

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 19 '19 at 14:31

I'm pretty sure that you can't achieve that behaviour using only XML files, but if you extend the TextView class to a custom one that capitalises the first letter, then you should be able to use only XML from this point on.

public class CapitalizeTextView extends TextView {
    // Create here constructors matching super

    @Override
    public void setText(CharSequence text, BufferType type) {
        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder(text);
        builder.setCharAt(0, Character.toUpperCase(builder.charAt(0)));
        super.setText(builder.toString(), type);
    }
}

From this point on, you only have to use CapitalizeTextView instead of TextView and the first letter will be capitalised. It works from XML or Java/Kotlin.

<mobile.com.capitalize.CapitalizeTextView
    ......
    android:text="not capital letter" />


textView.setText("not capital letter");

Hey, this is actually cool. I won't use it in my code because it is a pretty heavy thing for something as small as capitalization but in general, it is good! — Michał Powłoka, Mar 19 '19 at 16:56

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 19 '19 at 09:02

0

You can do it by setting the capitalize attribute.

From the doc

0 : Don't capitalize

1 : Capitalize first letter of sentences

2 : Capitalize first letter of words

3 : Capitalize everything

answered Mar 19 '19 at 09:02

vincrichaud

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This does not work I'm afraid. It works only with EditText and it only helps the user in typing. What is more, it is deprecated :/ – Michał Powłoka Mar 19 '19 at 09:11

Capitalize the first letter in Android TextView using XML

2 Answers2