EditText - have default text that cannot be deleted, and cover text with background after leaving EditText

Question

I am creating an email form and would like to have text in an EditText that cannot be deleted. On the screenshot below, the To could not be deleted.

If anyone has suggestions on how to achieve the above, it would be great - Thanks.

My current code for the To EditText box:

<EditText
    android:id="@+id/editText2"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_marginBottom="5dp"
    android:layout_marginLeft="5dp"
    android:layout_marginRight="5dp"
    android:layout_marginTop="0dp"
    android:hint="@string/email_to" >
</EditText>

The problem is android:hint text dissappears when the user starts to text, and android:text can be deleted by the user.

How do we have text that cannot be deleted? Thanks.

Note:

Also, I would like to note that I have a method that clears text using a clear button - this works fine - but I am hoping that it would not delete the fixed text (If I got that implemented!).. Here`s the code for that:

private void clearForm(ViewGroup group)
{       
    for (int i = 0, count = group.getChildCount(); i < count; ++i) {
    View view = group.getChildAt(i);
    if (view instanceof EditText) {
        ((EditText)view).setText("");
    }

    if(view instanceof ViewGroup && (((ViewGroup)view).getChildCount() > 0))
        clearForm((ViewGroup)view);
}
}

SOLUTION:

Managed a roundabout way of doing this.. I created a TextView and EditText within a nested Linear Layout. I turned off the border in the EditText using android:background="#00000000".

I created an xml file in the drawable folder, and refered to this in the relevant linear layout like this: android:background="@drawable/customxml"

Answer 1

To get the visual appearance you want, include a horizontal LinearLayout containing a text view and an EditView. Turn off the border around the EditView (there's an attribute that does that (I think it's android:shadowColor) ) Play around with margins and padding to get them to be adjacent to each other. Set the background color on the linear layout to put a border around the combined pair.

I wouldn't worry much about efficiency. You aren't nesting very deeply. The biggest challenge is going to be getting it to look like a single view.

Edit: Another thought. If that doesn't work, you could make the "To" a drawable, and set it using the android:drawableLeft attribute.