title: Sharing data with custom canvas view
body: <p>I'm a beginner at android programming, so excuse me if my wording is slightly incorrect.</p>
  
  <p>I have a custom canvas view along with a TextView inside a linear layout, defined in the layout file as</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;LinearLayout 
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:orientation="vertical"
      &gt;
  &lt;TextView  
      android:id="@+id/blah"
      android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
      android:layout_height="60dp"
      android:gravity="top|center_horizontal" 
  /&gt;        
  &lt;com.*.Overlay android:id="@+id/combined"
      android:layout_width="fill_parent"
      android:layout_height="100dp"           
  /&gt;
   &lt;/LinearLayout&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I need to be able to read the text contained in the TextView from within the Overlay custom class that I created.
  (The overlay class takes in 2 bitmaps and puts one on top of the other. The bitmaps used will depend on the text in the TextView.)</p>
  
  <p>I considered using intents, but the Overlay class doesn't have an onCreate method.. All my code is within the onDraw method. I also added the necessary constructors.</p>
  
  <p>I'm not sure what to try next, perhaps try accessing the parent linearlayout and then its child textview?</p>
  
  <p>Hope I managed to explain everything in a non-confusing manner</p>