Displaying Error if no item from a spinner is selected

Hello Everyone,
This blog is quite easy to understand and implement.
We all use spinner to display a list of selectable options and make our app interface more interactive .
In order to make app UI more interactive, we all try to set and point the error exactly at the view which is left empty. Let’s see how to do this on a spinner.

Concept :
A Spinner in android is actually a collection of textviews that are listed according to the number of entries in the list.
All you need to do is, to check if the spinner is empty and then select the default text view and set error message on that text view.

How to do this :

Check if spinner is empty.
Get the default selected view.
Request Focus for the same view.
Set some error message to be displayed.
You can also perform a click on the spinner so that the spinner list is displayed. (additional option).

CODE :

calling error method if spinner is empty :

 Spinner mySpinner = (Spinner)findViewById(R.id.spinner_configurable_item);
                            int selectedItemOfMySpinner = mySpinner.getSelectedItemPosition();
                            String actualPositionOfMySpinner = (String) mySpinner.getItemAtPosition(selectedItemOfMySpinner);

                            if (actualPositionOfMySpinner.isEmpty()) {
                                setSpinnerError(mySpinner,getString("field can't be empty"));
                            }

Spinner mySpinner = (Spinner)findViewById(R.id.spinner_configurable_item);

int selectedItemOfMySpinner = mySpinner.getSelectedItemPosition();

String actualPositionOfMySpinner = (String) mySpinner.getItemAtPosition(selectedItemOfMySpinner);

if (actualPositionOfMySpinner.isEmpty()) {

setSpinnerError(mySpinner,getString("field can't be empty"));

}

spinner error method :

private void setSpinnerError(Spinner spinner, String error){
        View selectedView = spinner.getSelectedView();
        if (selectedView != null && selectedView instanceof TextView) {
            spinner.requestFocus();
            TextView selectedTextView = (TextView) selectedView;
            selectedTextView.setError("error"); // any name of the error will do
            selectedTextView.setTextColor(Color.RED); //text color in which you want your error message to be displayed
            selectedTextView.setText(error); // actual error message 
            spinner.performClick(); // to open the spinner list if error is found.

        }
    }

private void setSpinnerError(Spinner spinner, String error){

View selectedView = spinner.getSelectedView();

if (selectedView != null && selectedView instanceof TextView) {

spinner.requestFocus();

TextView selectedTextView = (TextView) selectedView;

selectedTextView.setError("error"); // any name of the error will do

selectedTextView.setTextColor(Color.RED); //text color in which you want your error message to be displayed

selectedTextView.setText(error); // actual error message

spinner.performClick(); // to open the spinner list if error is found.

}

And it is done .
Check it out and I believe this makes UI better.

Keep coding and Keep Sahring.

References: http://stackoverflow.com/a/28582158

Android app

anchit 18 December 2016

. . .

6 comments

Muhammad Faisal Jan 30, 2019 at 1:29 pm

Hello man, i tried to implement that script but getItemAtPosition after String actualPositionOfMySpinner = (String) mySpinner. won’t showing.

Why is it?
Any mistyped?

Thanks

anchit (Moderator) Feb 1, 2019 at 12:04 pm
Hello there,

Can you share the exact code that you are using ??

Also, for debugging yourself you can try to have a look at these points.

1) You are getting spinner object correctly. (By logging the instance of spinner, it should not be null ).
2) printing the value of actualPositionOfMySpinner variable.
3) Try calling the spinner error directly.

If still there is something wrong, then Please do share the code snippets you are using and i will try to help you as soon as possible.

Reply

Joshua Swiss Apr 18, 2019 at 4:17 pm

This is awesome! Thanks, I’d really been struggling with getting an error to show properly on my spinners until I found this

anchit (Moderator) Apr 22, 2019 at 9:59 am
You are Welcome

Reply

Hayat Nov 6, 2020 at 9:21 pm

Thanks for this great solution!

anchit (Moderator) Dec 29, 2020 at 1:37 am
Your Welcome

Reply

Displaying Error if no item from a spinner is selected

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