This library provides RelativeTimeTextView, a custom TextView that takes a reference time and always displays the relative time with respect to the reference point, automatically refreshing the display text as needed. This is a common pattern seen in several apps like chat apps, social networking, email etc.
This library can be seen as a wrapper on top of the excellent android.text.format.DateUtils class. Note that the library does not expose all the options provided by the DateUtils class. I have left out many features because I couldn't decide what would be the best way to achieve the flexibility - dozens of XML attributes? Contributions in this regard are welcome.
One might ask, why not just use DateUtils directly? Well, the answer is that the custom TextView provided by this library is responsible for keeping track of its own reference time and of updating the display text over regular periodic intervals. It is also responsible for scheduling (or cancelling a scheduled) update of the display text. All you have to do is include RelativeTimeTextView in your layouts, and set its reference time, either using setReferenceTime(long) or with the XML attribute reference_time. See the sample project for a concrete example.
###License
Copyright 2013 Kiran Rao
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.