Custom TextView in android with different color words

Question

Is it possible to have a textview to have different color for every word? Or even every letter? I tried extending textview and creating it but however I thought of the problem is, how would I draw all the the text out at the same time with different colors?

Yes, with `Html.fromHtml()` See http://stackoverflow.com/q/1529068/871102 — Xavi Gil, Jul 13 '12 at 23:24
Thanks Xavi. Html.fromHtml() seems to work in my case. Never tried spannable so ima give that a try first before html. — wtsang02, Jul 13 '12 at 23:33

score 32 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 26 '12 at 23:46

32

Use android.text.Spannable

final SpannableStringBuilder str = new SpannableStringBuilder(text);
str.setSpan(
    new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.BLUE), 
    wordStart, 
    wordEnd, 
    SpannableStringBuilder.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE
);
myTextView.setText(str);

EDIT: To make all "Java" green

final Pattern p = Pattern.compile("Java");
final Matcher matcher = p.matcher(text);

final SpannableStringBuilder spannable = new SpannableStringBuilder(text);
final ForegroundColorSpan span = new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.GREEN);
while (matcher.find()) {
    spannable.setSpan(
        span, matcher.start(), matcher.end(), Spanned.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE
    );
}
myTextView.setText(spannable);

edited Oct 26 '12 at 23:46

bancer

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answered Jul 13 '12 at 23:28

vasart

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39

How would i set span if I wanted all the "Java" in the textview to be green? – wtsang02 Jul 13 '12 at 23:36
To do that you have to use regular expressions. See edited answer. – vasart Jul 13 '12 at 23:43
One more follow up question. Am i able to put "spannable" into another loop? and set another string to a different color? – wtsang02 Jul 14 '12 at 00:08
1

SpanableStringBuilder is the way to go. – Code Droid Jul 14 '12 at 01:04
Thank you very much. I got most of the problems solved from this. – wtsang02 Jul 14 '12 at 23:18

score 21 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 13 '12 at 23:38

The SpannableString class allows you to easily format certain pieces (spans) of a string one way and other pieces another by applying extensions of CharacterStyle (i.e. ForegroundColorSpan) via the setSpan method.

You can try This:

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle icicle) {
    super.onCreate(icicle);
    setContentView(R.layout.main);
    richTextView = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.rich_text);

    // this is the text we'll be operating on
    SpannableString text = new SpannableString("Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet");

    // make "Lorem" (characters 0 to 5) red
    text.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.RED), 0, 5, 0);

    // make "ipsum" (characters 6 to 11) one and a half time bigger than the textbox
    text.setSpan(new RelativeSizeSpan(1.5f), 6, 11, 0);

    // make "dolor" (characters 12 to 17) display a toast message when touched
    final Context context = this;
    ClickableSpan clickableSpan = new ClickableSpan() {
        @Override
        public void onClick(View view) {
            Toast.makeText(context, "dolor", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
        }
    };
    text.setSpan(clickableSpan, 12, 17, 0);

    // make "sit" (characters 18 to 21) struck through
    text.setSpan(new StrikethroughSpan(), 18, 21, 0);

    // make "amet" (characters 22 to 26) twice as big, green and a link to this site.
    // it's important to set the color after the URLSpan or the standard
    // link color will override it.
    text.setSpan(new RelativeSizeSpan(2f), 22, 26, 0);
    text.setSpan(new URLSpan("http://www.chrisumbel.com"), 22, 26, 0);
    text.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.GREEN), 22, 26, 0);

    // make our ClickableSpans and URLSpans work
    richTextView.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());

    // shove our styled text into the TextView        
    richTextView.setText(text, BufferType.SPANNABLE);
}

The result will look like this:

enter image description here

For more detail see Chris Umbel blog.

score 4 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:31

4

Yes, you can do this with Spannable and SpannableStringBuilder. See Is there any example about Spanned and Spannable text for one example.

For the various ways to format text (background color, foreground color, clickable, etc.), see CharacterStyle.

edited May 23 '17 at 10:31

Community

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answered Jul 13 '12 at 23:29

quietmint

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Custom TextView in android with different color words

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