How to set cursor position in EditText?

Question

There are two EditText,while loading the page a text is set in the first EditText, So now cursor will be in the starting place of EditText, I want to set cursor position in the second EditText which contains no data. How to do this?

Answer 1

Where position is an int:

editText1.setSelection(position)

Answer 2

I have done this way to set cursor position to end of the text after updating the text of EditText programmatically here, etmsg is EditText

etmsg.setText("Updated Text From another Activity");
int position = etmsg.length();
Editable etext = etmsg.getText();
Selection.setSelection(etext, position);

Answer 3

How to Set EditText Cursor position in Android

Below Code is Set cursor to Starting in EditText:

 EditText editText = (EditText)findViewById(R.id.edittext_id);
 editText.setSelection(0);

Below Code is Set cursor to end of the EditText:

EditText editText = (EditText)findViewById(R.id.edittext_id);
editText.setSelection(editText.getText().length());

Below Code is Set cursor after some 2th Character position :

 EditText editText = (EditText)findViewById(R.id.edittext_id);
 editText.setSelection(2);

Answer 4

I want to set cursor position in edittext which contains no data

There is only one position in an empty EditText, it's setSelection(0).

Or did you mean you want to get focus to your EditText when your activity opens? In that case its requestFocus()

Answer 5

use the below line

e2.setSelection(e2.length());

e2 is edit text Object Name

Answer 6

Let editText2 is your second EditText view .then put following piece of code in onResume()

editText2.setFocusableInTouchMode(true);
editText2.requestFocus();

or put

<requestFocus />

in your xml layout of the second EditText view.

Answer 7

If you want to place the cursor in a certain position on an EditText, you can use:

yourEditText.setSelection(position);

Additionally, there is the possibility to set the initial and final position, so that you programmatically select some text, this way:

yourEditText.setSelection(startPosition, endPosition);

Please note that setting the selection might be tricky since you can place the cursor before or after a character, the image below explains how to index works in this case:

So, if you want the cursor at the end of the text, just set it to yourEditText.length().

Answer 8

some time edit text cursor donot comes at particular position is if we directly use editText.setSelection(position); . In that case you can try

editText.post(new Runnable() {
                @Override
                public void run() {
                    editText.setSelection(string.length());
                }
            });

Answer 9

setSelection(int index) method in Edittext should allow you to do this.

Answer 10

as a reminder: if you are using edittext.setSelection() to set the cursor, and it is NOT working while setting up an alertdialog for example, make sure to set the selection() AFTER the dialog has been created

example:

AlertDialog dialog = builder.show();
input.setSelection(x,y);

Answer 11

This code will help you to show your cursor at the last position of editing text.

 editText.requestFocus();
 editText.setSelection(editText.length());

Answer 12

Remember call requestFocus() before setSelection for edittext.

Answer 13

I won't get setSelection() method directly , so i done like below and work like charm

EditText editText = (EditText)findViewById(R.id.edittext_id);
editText.setText("Updated New Text");
int position = editText.getText().length();
Editable editObj= editText.getText();
Selection.setSelection(editObj, position);

Answer 14

If you want to set the cursor after n character from right to left then you have to do like this.

edittext.setSelection(edittext.length()-n);

If edittext's text like

version<sub></sub>

and you want to move cursor at 6th position from right

Then it will move the cursor at-

    version<sub> </sub>
                ^

Answer 15

EditText editText = findViewById(R.id.editText);
editText.setSelection(editText.getText().length());

Answer 16

if(myEditText.isSelected){
    myEditText.setSelection(myEditText.length())
    }

Answer 17

You can use like this:

if (your_edittext.getText().length() > 0 ) {

    your_edittext.setSelection(your_edittext.getText().length());
}

Can you add this line to your EditText xml

android:gravity="right"
android:ellipsize="end"
android:paddingLeft="10dp"//you set this as you need

But when any Text writing you should set the paddingleft to zero

you should use this on addTextChangedListener

Answer 18

Set cursor to a row and column

You can use the following code to get the position in your EditText that corresponds to a certain row and column. You can then use editText.setSelection(getIndexFromPos(row, column)) to set the cursor position. The following calls to the method can be made:

• getIndexFromPos(x, y) Go to the column y of line x
• getIndexFromPos(x, -1) Go to the last column of line x
• getIndexFromPos(-1, y) Go to the column y of last line
• getIndexFromPos(-1, -1) Go to the last column of the last line

All line and column bounds are handled; Entering a column greater than the line's length will return position at the last column of the line. Entering a line greater than the EditText's line count will go to the last line. It should be reliable enough as it was heavily tested.

static final String LINE_SEPARATOR = System.getProperty("line.separator");

int getIndexFromPos(int line, int column) {
    int lineCount = getTrueLineCount();
    if (line < 0) line = getLayout().getLineForOffset(getSelectionStart());  // No line, take current line
    if (line >= lineCount) line = lineCount - 1;  // Line out of bounds, take last line

    String content = getText().toString() + LINE_SEPARATOR;
    int currentLine = 0;
    for (int i = 0; i < content.length(); i++) {
        if (currentLine == line) {
            int lineLength = content.substring(i, content.length()).indexOf(LINE_SEPARATOR);
            if (column < 0 || column > lineLength) return i + lineLength;  // No column or column out of bounds, take last column
            else return i + column;
        }
        if (String.valueOf(content.charAt(i)).equals(LINE_SEPARATOR)) currentLine++;
    }
    return -1;  // Should not happen
}

// Fast alternative to StringUtils.countMatches(getText().toString(), LINE_SEPARATOR) + 1
public int getTrueLineCount() {
    int count;
    String text = getText().toString();
    StringReader sr = new StringReader(text);
    LineNumberReader lnr = new LineNumberReader(sr);
    try {
        lnr.skip(Long.MAX_VALUE);
        count = lnr.getLineNumber() + 1;
    } catch (IOException e) {
        count = 0;  // Should not happen
    }
    sr.close();
    return count;
}

The question was already answered but I thought someone could want to do that instead.

It works by looping through each character, incrementing the line count every time it finds a line separator. When the line count equals the desired line, it returns the current index + the column, or the line end index if column is out of bounds. You can also reuse the getTrueLineCount() method, it returns a line count ignoring text wrapping, unlike TextView.getLineCount().

Answer 19

In kotlin, you could create an extension function like this:

fun EditText.placeCursorAtLast() {
    val string = this.text.toString()
    this.setSelection(string.length)
}

and then simply call myEditText.placeCursorAtLast()

Answer 20

If you want to set cursor position in EditText? try these below code

EditText rename;
 String title = "title_goes_here";
 int counts = (int) title.length();
 rename.setSelection(counts);
 rename.setText(title);

Answer 21

How to resolve the cursor position issue which is automatically moving to the last position after formatting in US Mobile like (xxx) xxx-xxxx in Android.

private String oldText = "";
private int lastCursor;
private EditText mEtPhone;

@Override
    public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {
String cleanString = AppUtil.cleanPhone(s.toString());

String format = cleanString.length() < 11 ? cleanString.replaceFirst("(\\d{3})(\\d{3})(\\d+)", "($1) $2-$3") :
                cleanString.substring(0, 10).replaceFirst("(\\d{3})(\\d{3})(\\d+)", "($1) $2-$3");


boolean isDeleted = format.length() < oldText.length();

        try {

            int cur = AppUtil.getPointer(lastCursor, isDeleted ? s.toString() : format, oldText, isDeleted);
            mEtPhone.setSelection(cur > 0 ? cur : format.length());

        }catch (Exception e){
            e.printStackTrace();
            mEtPhone.setSelection(format.length());
        }

        mEtPhone.addTextChangedListener(this);

    }

    @Override
    public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int count, int after) {

        oldText = s.toString();
        lastCursor = start;
    }

Define the below method to any Activityclass in my case Activity name is AppUtil and access it globally

public static int getPointer(int index, String newString, String oldText, boolean isDeleted){

        int diff = Math.abs(newString.length() - oldText.length());

        return diff > 1 ? isDeleted ? index - diff : index  + diff : isDeleted ? index : index + 1;
    }

public static String cleanPhone(String phone){

        if(TextUtils.isEmpty(phone))
            return "";

        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        for(char c : phone.toCharArray()){
            if(Character.isDigit(c))
                sb.append(c);
        }
        return sb.toString();
    }

And if you want to set any specific position

edittext.setSelection(position);

Answer 22

I'm so late to answer this problem, so I figure it out. Just use,

android:gravity="center_horizontal"

Answer 23

I believe the most simple way to do this is just use padding.

Say in your xml's edittext section, add android:paddingLeft="100dp" This will move your start position of cursor 100dp right from left end.

Same way, you can use android:paddingRight="100dp" This will move your end position of cursor 100dp left from right end.

For more detail, check this article on my blog: Android: Setting Cursor Starting and Ending Position in EditText Widget