Creating a custom Android AlertDialog

This is a repost of an answer I wrote on Stack Overflow.

AlertDialog with a custom layout

Sometimes the standard AlertDialogs just don’t meet your needs. It’s not difficult to create a custom alert, though. This post will show you a minimal example. When we’re done, you can follow the same procedure to add any layout you want.

Create a custom layout

A layout with an EditText is used for this simple example, but you can replace it with anything you like.

custom_layout.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
              android:orientation="vertical"
              android:paddingLeft="20dp"
              android:paddingRight="20dp"
              android:layout_width="match_parent"
              android:layout_height="match_parent">
    <EditText
        android:id="@+id/editText"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>
</LinearLayout>

Use the dialog in code

The key parts are

• using setView to assign the custom layout to the AlertDialog.Builder
• sending any data back to the activity when a dialog button is clicked.

This is the full code from the example project shown in the image above:

MainActivity.java

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
    }
    public void showAlertDialogButtonClicked(View view) {
        // create an alert builder
        AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(this);
        builder.setTitle("Name");
        // set the custom layout
        final View customLayout = getLayoutInflater().inflate(R.layout.custom_layout, null);
        builder.setView(customLayout);
        // add a button
        builder.setPositiveButton("OK", new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {…