setEnabled() vs setClickable(), what is the difference?

From: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15615823/setenabled-vs-setclickable-what-is-the-difference

setEnabled() vs setClickable(), what is the difference?

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Until now, when I wanted to block the user from pressing the button, I would set thebutton.setClickable(false);, and usually change the text to some kind of gray (to let the user know that the button is disabled). today I stumble on the setEnabled() property. So I went to the documentation to see that: setEnabled(boolean enabled) Set the enabled state of this view. What the hell is that mean? what is the difference between enable state/clickable state and disabled state/ not clickable state? Some one could please explain what is the difference between doing what I was doing until now (using the clickable property) and using the setEnable property? what should be used when? I search SO but could not find something related. Thanks. android android-button clickable share | improve this question edited Mar 25 '13 at 13:38 asked Mar 25 '13 at 13:11 Emil Adz 12.4k 11 41 70

3   I would guess that setEnabled (false) makes a View non-clickable AND non-focusable which means it gets completely locked. Also, setEnabled(false) is a preferred way in case of a Button since it makes the Button visually "disabled" –  Droidman Mar 25 '13 at 13:24 what do you mean by: "..since it makes the Button visually "disabled"? how does it changes it visually? and what if I use a custom selector? –  Emil Adz Mar 25 '13 at 13:29 not sure about a custom selector, have not tested it. But in case of a standard Button, it gets semi-transparent so you don't need to do it by hand –  Droidman Mar 25 '13 at 13:32 add a comment

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What the hell is that mean? Quoting the Wikipedia page for "GUI widget": In the context of an application, a widget may be enabled or disabled at a given point in time. An enabled widget has the capacity to respond to events, such as keystrokes or mouse actions. A widget that cannot respond to such events is considered disabled. The appearance of disabled widget is typically different from an enabled widget; the disabled widget may be drawn in a lighter color, or may be visually obscured in some way. See the image to the right for an example. This concept has been around for a couple of decades and can be found in most GUI frameworks. what is the difference between enable state/clickable state and disabled state/ not clickable state? In Android, a widget that is not clickable will not respond to click events. A disabled widget not only is not clickable, but it also visually indicates that it is disabled. what do you mean by: "..since it makes the Button visually "disabled"? how does it changes it visually? What makes a Button look and respond like a Button is its background, which is a StateListDrawable. There is a specific image used for the disabled state. share | improve this answer answered Mar 25 '13 at 13:46 CommonsWare 414k 35 864 934

nice one. Though I was pretty much sure that only the alpha value of Button's background gets changed and there's no specific drawable –  Droidman Mar 25 '13 at 13:49 @Maver1ck: The Button StateListDrawable definitely has a disabled state: github.com/android/platform_frameworks_base/blob/master/core/… It's possible that there are other effects applied by the Button class, though I am not aware of any. –  CommonsWare Mar 25 '13 at 13:53 I just made a small test and it seems like for Buttons, the text color is changed as well. It gets gray when I set the button's enabled to false. –  FD_ Mar 25 '13 at 13:54 so basically if I use a custom selector? I should specify a certain drawable if I would want to use the setEnable() method on this specific button (and to get a feedback on this change)? –  Emil Adz Mar 25 '13 at 13:54 2   @EmilAdz: If you change the text color, or you change the button background, you will want to have an appropriate entry in the ColorStateList or StateListDrawable for a disabled state. That entry will be used when setEnabled(false) is called, or android:enabled="false" is used in a layout. –  CommonsWare Mar 25 '13 at 13:57