Selecting text in a WebView?

Question

The browser does this by calling public void emulateShiftHeld() method on the WebView which is hidden in the SDK.
Any other options?

hey you got the solution for your problem? – vnshetty May 23 '11 at 04:09 — vnshetty, May 23 '11 at 04:09
this solution doesn't work on ICS – RPB Jun 19 '12 at 07:56 — RPB, Jun 19 '12 at 07:56

yanchenko · Accepted Answer · 2011-01-07T17:34:42.797

8

From the class that extends WebView:

public void selectAndCopyText() {
    try {
        Method m = WebView.class.getMethod("emulateShiftHeld", null);
        m.invoke(this, null);
    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
        // fallback
        KeyEvent shiftPressEvent = new KeyEvent(0,0,
             KeyEvent.ACTION_DOWN,KeyEvent.KEYCODE_SHIFT_LEFT,0,0);
        shiftPressEvent.dispatch(this);
    }
}

And then you have to use ClipboardManager to watch for new text.

Works on Android 1.5 - 2.3. emulateShiftHeld() made public since 2.2.

edited Jan 07 '11 at 17:34

answered Jul 11 '09 at 08:05

yanchenko

56,576
33
147
165

As long as the user "cooperates" by **manually** selecting the text. See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5250290/why-doesnt-this-motionevent-simulation-work – Regex Rookie Mar 09 '11 at 20:32
Under Anroid 4.0.3 m.invoke(webView, null) cause native crash 09-21 23:20:49.151: A/libc(4103): Fatal signal 11 (SIGSEGV) at 0x00000014 (code=1) – Mike Keskinov Sep 21 '12 at 15:34
Sorry I don't get this.. I've added selectAndCopyText() in my class that extends WebView, but where do I call this function to allow text in WebView to be selectable? – Bruce Nov 24 '13 at 03:40

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 26 '10 at 17:13

This chunk of code does the exact same thing as emulateshiftheld(). It allows the user to select text. Then automatically copies it to the clipboard.

        KeyEvent shiftPressEvent = new KeyEvent(0,0,
                 KeyEvent.ACTION_DOWN,KeyEvent.KEYCODE_SHIFT_LEFT,0,0);
            shiftPressEvent.dispatch(portal);

Selecting text in a WebView?

2 Answers2

Linked