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androidandroid-layouttextviewandroid-view

Is using a TextView to create separation between two page elements ill-advised?


I'm a student in an android development program. I've built a few apps and I had an idea to use a very simple TextView to draw a line across the screen to visually separate a page element. The TextView would hold no text, it has no function or use other than to separate two elements with a horizontal rule. I'm using it in a ConstraintLayout.

Can anyone give me a reason as to why this is NOT a good idea? What would the best practices be otherwise? Is it normal to use an empty TextView in this manner?

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Solution

  • It's perfectly fine to do that, but it's unnecessary to use a TextView specifically: A TextView with no text is just a View.

    You can just create a View with whatever height and background color and use that:

    <View
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_width="1dp"
        android:background="@color/my_divider_color" />
    

    Replace 1dp with whatever height you want and @color/my_divider_color with whatever color you want the divider to be.