[android] Disabling of EditText in Android

In my application, I have an EditText that the user only has Read access not Write access.

In code I set android:enabled="false".

Although the background of EditText changed to dark, when I click on it the keyboard pops up and I can change the text.

What should I set to disable EditText?

android:editable="false"

is now deprecated and use

 YourEditText.setInputType(InputType.TYPE_NULL);

There are multiple was how to achieve multiple levels of disabled.

• editText.setShowSoftInputOnFocus(false); and editText.setFocusable

prevents the EditText from showing keyboard - writing in some text. But cursor is still visible and user can paste in some text.

• editText.setCursorVisible(false)

hides the cursor. Not sure why would you want to do that tho. User can input text & paste.

• editText.setKeyListener(null)

I find this way most convenient. There is no way how user can input text, but widget still works with OnClickListener if you want to trigger action when user touches it

• editText.setEnabled(false);

completely disables EditText. It is literally 'read-only', user cannot input any text in it and (for example) OnClickListener doesn't work with it.

TextEdit documentation

I use google newly released Material Design Library. In my case, it works when I use android:focusable="false" and android:cursorVisible="false"

<com.google.android.material.textfield.TextInputLayout
                    android:id="@+id/to_time_input_layout"
                    app:endIconMode="custom"
                    app:endIconDrawable="@drawable/ic_clock"
                    app:endIconContentDescription="ToTime"
                    app:endIconTint="@color/colorAccent"
                    style="@style/OutlinedEditTextStyle"
                    android:hint="To Time">

                    <com.google.android.material.textfield.TextInputEditText
                        android:id="@+id/to_time_edit_text"
                        android:layout_width="match_parent"
                        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                        android:focusable="false"
                        android:cursorVisible="false" />

</com.google.android.material.textfield.TextInputLayout>

Today I still use editable="false", but also with focusable="false".

I think the case we need to make an EditText un-editable, is because we want to keep its EditText style (with that underline, with hint, etc), but it accepts other inputs instead of text. For example a dropdown list.

In such use case, we need to have the EditText clickable (thus enabled="false" is not suitable). Setting focusable="false" do this trick, however, I can still long hold on the EditText and paste my own text onto it from clipboard. Depending on your code and handling this can even crash your app.

So I also used editable="false" and now everything is great, except the warning.

Use this to disable user input

android:focusable="false"

android:editable="false" This method is deprecated one.

if you use android:editable="false", eclipse will remind you this message "android:editable is deprecated: Use inputType instead".

So, I use android:focusable="false" instead, it worked well for me.

you can use android:focusable="false" but also need to disable cursor otherwise copy/paste function would still work.

so, use

android:focusable="false"
android:cursorVisible="false"

For disable edit EditText, I think we can use focusable OR enable but

1. Using android:enabled=... or editText.setEnabled(...)

   It also changes the text color in EditText to gray.
   When clicked it have no effect

2. Using android:focusable=... or editText.setFocusable(false) - editText.setFocusableInTouchMode(true)

   It doesn't change text color of EditText
   When clicked it highlights the EditText bottom line for about few millisecond

Output

As some answer mention it, if you disable the editText he become gray and if you set focusable false the cursor is displaying.

If you would like to do it only with xml this did the trick

       <YourFloatLabel
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content">

            <EditText
                android:id="@+id/view_ads_search_select"
                android:layout_width="match_parent"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

            <FrameLayout
                android:layout_width="match_parent"
                android:layout_height="match_parent"
                android:focusable="true"
                android:clickable="true"/>  
       </YourFloatLabel>

I simply add a FrameLayout appear above the editText and set it focusable and clickable so the editText can't be click.

Disable = FOCUS+CLICK+CURSOR

Disabling focus, click, and cursor visibility does the trick for me.

Here is the code in XML

<EditText
    android:id="@+id/name"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:focusable="false"
    android:cursorVisible="false"
    android:clickable="false"
    />

use EditText.setFocusable(false) to disable editing
EditText.setFocusableInTouchMode(true) to enable editing;

Simply:

editText.setEnabled(false);

In my case I needed my EditText to scroll text if no. of lines exceed maxLines when its disabled. This implementation worked perfectly for me.

private void setIsChatEditTextEditable(boolean value)
{
    if(value)
    {
        mEdittext.setCursorVisible(true);
        mEdittext.setSelection(chat_edittext.length());
       // use new EditText(getApplicationContext()).getKeyListener()) if required below
        mEdittext.setKeyListener(new AppCompatEditText(getApplicationContext()).getKeyListener());  
    }
    else
    {
        mEdittext.setCursorVisible(false);
        mEdittext.setKeyListener(null);
    }
}

To disable the functionality of an EditText, just use:

EditText.setInputType(InputType.TYPE_NULL);

in case you want to enable it some way, then you can use:

EditText.setInputType(InputType.TYPE_CLASS_TEXT);

This works for me:

android:focusable="false"

Set this in your XML code, It works.

android:focusableInTouchMode="false"

This will make your edittext disabled.

editText.setEnabled(false);

And by using this

editText.setInputType(InputType.TYPE_NULL);

Will just make your Edittext not show your softkeyboard, but if it is connected to a physical keyboard, it will let you type.

Use TextView instead.

From @Asymptote's comment on the accepted answer, use:

myEditText.setEnabled(false);
myEditText.setInputType(InputType.TYPE_NULL);

...and Bob's your uncle.

You can try the following method :

 private void disableEditText(EditText editText) {
    editText.setFocusable(false);
    editText.setEnabled(false);
    editText.setCursorVisible(false);
    editText.setKeyListener(null);
    editText.setBackgroundColor(Color.TRANSPARENT); 
 }

Enabled EditText :

Disabled EditText :

It works for me and hope it helps you.

As android:editable="false" is depricated.You can use InputType TYPE_NULL on EditText

use like this :

editText.setInputType(InputType.TYPE_NULL);

Set below properties in class:

editText.setFocusable(false);
editText.setEnabled(false);

It will work smoothly as you required.

As android:editable="false" deprecated In xml

Use android:enabled="false" it's simple. Why use more code?

If you want in java class you can also use this programmatically

 editText.setEnabled(false);

Try this one, works fine for me:

public class CustomEdittext extends EditText {

Boolean mIsTextEditor=true;
public CustomEdittext(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
    super(context, attrs);
    // TODO Auto-generated constructor stub
}

@Override
public boolean onCheckIsTextEditor() {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    return mIsTextEditor;
}


@Override
public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
    mIsTextEditor=false;
    Boolean mOnTouchEvent=super.onTouchEvent(event);
    mIsTextEditor=true;     
    return mOnTouchEvent;
} }

Note: You need to add this.getWindow().setSoftInputMode(WindowManager.LayoutParams.SOFT_INPUT_STATE_ALWAYS_HIDDEN); on your activity or else keyboard will popup at first time.

Using android:editable="false" is Depracted. Instead you'll need to Use android:focusable="false"