Custom fonts and XML layouts (Android)

I'm trying to define a GUI layout using XML files in Android. As far as I can find out, there is no way to specify that your widgets should use a custom font (e.g. one you've placed in assets/font/) in XML files and you can only use the system installed fonts.

I know that, in the Java code, I could change the font of each widget manually using unique IDs. Alternatively, I could iterate over all the widgets in Java to make this change, but this would probably be very slow.

What other options do I have? Is there any better ways to making widgets that have a custom look? I don't particularly want to have to manually change the font for every new widget I add.

You can extend TextView to set custom fonts as I learned here.

TextViewPlus.java:

package com.example;

import android.content.Context;
import android.content.res.TypedArray;
import android.graphics.Typeface;
import android.util.AttributeSet;
import android.util.Log;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class TextViewPlus extends TextView {
    private static final String TAG = "TextView";

    public TextViewPlus(Context context) {
        super(context);
    }

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

    public TextViewPlus(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyle) {
        super(context, attrs, defStyle);
        setCustomFont(context, attrs);
    }

    private void setCustomFont(Context ctx, AttributeSet attrs) {
        TypedArray a = ctx.obtainStyledAttributes(attrs, R.styleable.TextViewPlus);
        String customFont = a.getString(R.styleable.TextViewPlus_customFont);
        setCustomFont(ctx, customFont);
        a.recycle();
    }

    public boolean setCustomFont(Context ctx, String asset) {
        Typeface tf = null;
        try {
        tf = Typeface.createFromAsset(ctx.getAssets(), asset);  
        } catch (Exception e) {
            Log.e(TAG, "Could not get typeface: "+e.getMessage());
            return false;
        }

        setTypeface(tf);  
        return true;
    }

}

attrs.xml: (in res/values)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <declare-styleable name="TextViewPlus">
        <attr name="customFont" format="string"/>
    </declare-styleable>
</resources>

main.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout 
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:foo="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/com.example"
    android:orientation="vertical" android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent">

    <com.example.TextViewPlus
        android:id="@+id/textViewPlus1"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:text="@string/showingOffTheNewTypeface"
        foo:customFont="saxmono.ttf">
    </com.example.TextViewPlus>
</LinearLayout>

You would put "saxmono.ttf" in the assets folder.

UPDATE 8/1/13

There are serious memory concerns with this method. See chedabob's comment below.

I'm 3 years late for the party :( However this could be useful for someone who might stumble upon this post.

I've written a library that caches Typefaces and also allow you to specify custom typefaces right from XML. You can find the library here.

Here is how your XML layout would look like, when you use it.

<com.mobsandgeeks.ui.TypefaceTextView
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="@string/hello_world"
    geekui:customTypeface="fonts/custom_font.ttf" />

This might be a little late, but you need to create a singleton class that returns the custom typeface to avoid memory leaks.

TypeFace class:

public class OpenSans {

private static OpenSans instance;
private static Typeface typeface;

public static OpenSans getInstance(Context context) {
    synchronized (OpenSans.class) {
        if (instance == null) {
            instance = new OpenSans();
            typeface = Typeface.createFromAsset(context.getResources().getAssets(), "open_sans.ttf");
        }
        return instance;
    }
}

public Typeface getTypeFace() {
    return typeface;
}
}

Custom TextView:

public class NativelyCustomTextView extends TextView {

    public NativelyCustomTextView(Context context) {
        super(context);
        setTypeface(OpenSans.getInstance(context).getTypeFace());
    }

    public NativelyCustomTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
        super(context, attrs);
        setTypeface(OpenSans.getInstance(context).getTypeFace());
    }

    public NativelyCustomTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs,
            int defStyle) {
        super(context, attrs, defStyle);
        setTypeface(OpenSans.getInstance(context).getTypeFace());
    }

}

By xml:

<com.yourpackage.views.NativelyCustomTextView
            android:id="@+id/natively_text_view"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
            android:layout_margin="20dp"
            android:text="@string/natively"
            android:textSize="30sp" /> 

Programmatically:

TextView programmaticallyTextView = (TextView) 
       findViewById(R.id.programmatically_text_view);

programmaticallyTextView.setTypeface(OpenSans.getInstance(this)
                .getTypeFace());