Android, set text for an EditText on startup

Question

So I have a simple android app where I take text from a text file (that part is working) and I want to set that text to EditText.setText(). The problem I'm having is that I cannot do this in the onCreate() method because the EditText field and the UI hasn't been created yet(from what it seems).

My question is where would be a good place to do this? Is there a function that is called right after the GUI elements are created?

 public class MainActivity extends ActionBarActivity
 {
     private final String FILE_NAME = "awayReply";

     private EditText myEditMessage;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) 
{
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

    if (savedInstanceState == null) 
    {
        getSupportFragmentManager().beginTransaction().add(R.id.container, new PlaceholderFragment()).commit();
    }

}

@Override
protected void onStart()
{
    String message = readMessage();

    myEditMessage = (EditText)findViewById(R.id.edit_message);

    if(myEditMessage != null)
    {
        myEditMessage.setText(message, TextView.BufferType.EDITABLE);
    }
}

XML Layout:

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:orientation="horizontal"
android:paddingBottom="16dp"
android:paddingTop="16dp" >

<EditText
    android:id="@+id/edit_message"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:hint="@string/lbl_message"
    android:inputType="textImeMultiLine" />

<Button
    android:id="@+id/btn_update"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_toRightOf="@id/edit_message"
    android:onClick="updateMessage"
    android:text="@string/lbl_update" />

<ToggleButton
    android:id="@+id/toggle_away"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_alignBaseline="@+id/lbl_enable"
    android:layout_alignBottom="@+id/lbl_enable"
    android:layout_toRightOf="@+id/edit_message"
    android:textOff="Disabled"
    android:textOn="Enabled"
    android:onClick="toggleEnabled" />



 </RelativeLayout>

Answer 1

I think I figured out my problem. I need to do this work in the PlaceholderFragment where onCreateView is defined. When I call findviewbyid here it dosen't return null.

Answer 2

You can't set your text in a TextView until you inflate your layout with

setContentView(R.layout.main_activity);

in the Activity's OnCreate

Once that happens you can do:

EditText editText = (EditText)findViewById(R.id.myEditText)

Full Example:

protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main); // this needs to happen first
    EditText editText = (EditText)findViewById(R.id.myEditText)
    editText.setText("my text", TextView.BufferType.EDITABLE); // <-- needs that second parameter
}

Edit: updated for EditText instead of TextView