Unable to center the text in TextView when width is set to 'match_parent'

Question

I am relatively new to the Android SDK and am working with a TextView amongst other components on my activity UI. When I set the width to wrap_content and use layout_gravity, I am able to center the TextView in my parent container.

However, I now need to give the TextView a background that stretches fully along the width of the parent and so I set the width to match_parent. Once I do this, neither layout_gravity nor textAlignment="center" are able to center the text within the view. This is the code I am using:

<TextView
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="0dp"
        android:layout_weight="1"
        android:text="@string/trackName"
        android:textColor="#ffffff"
        android:layout_gravity="center"
        android:textSize="28sp"
        android:paddingTop="7dp"
        android:paddingLeft="20dp"
        android:background="#99000000" />

This is what the activity UI looks like right now:

How can I fix this and align my text to the center of the TextView control?

Answer 1

You should use android:gravity. As the docs say:

gravity Specifies how an object should position its content, on both the X and Y axes, within its own bounds.

layout_gravity Standard gravity constant that a child supplies to its parent. Defines how the child view should be positioned, on both the X and Y axes, within its enclosing layout.