Is it possible to display inline images from html in an Android TextView?

Question

Given the following HTML:

<p>This is text and this is an image <img src="http://www.example.com/image.jpg" />.</p>

Is it possible to make the image render? When using this snippet: mContentText.setText(Html.fromHtml(text));, I get a cyan box with black borders, leading me to believe that a TextView has some idea of what an img tag is.

Checkout my post @javatechig.com http://javatechig.com/2013/04/07/how-to-display-html-in-android-view/ — Nilanchala, Apr 07 '13 at 20:24

David Webb · Accepted Answer · 2010-05-19T13:44:54.470

If you have a look at the documentation for Html.fromHtml(text) you'll see it says:

Any <img> tags in the HTML will display as a generic replacement image which your program can then go through and replace with real images.

If you don't want to do this replacement yourself you can use the other Html.fromHtml() method which takes an Html.TagHandler and an Html.ImageGetter as arguments as well as the text to parse.

In your case you could parse null as for the Html.TagHandler but you'd need to implement your own Html.ImageGetter as there isn't a default implementation.

However, the problem you're going to have is that the Html.ImageGetter needs to run synchronously and if you're downloading images from the web you'll probably want to do that asynchronously. If you can add any images you want to display as resources in your application the your ImageGetter implementation becomes a lot simpler. You could get away with something like:

private class ImageGetter implements Html.ImageGetter {

    public Drawable getDrawable(String source) {
        int id;

        if (source.equals("stack.jpg")) {
            id = R.drawable.stack;
        }
        else if (source.equals("overflow.jpg")) {
            id = R.drawable.overflow;
        }
        else {
            return null;
        }

        Drawable d = getResources().getDrawable(id);
        d.setBounds(0,0,d.getIntrinsicWidth(),d.getIntrinsicHeight());
        return d;
    }
};

You'd probably want to figure out something smarter for mapping source strings to resource IDs though.

OK. I found it was easier to just use a WebView instead. I can see your technique being useful for other similar scenarios, though. Thanks! — Gunnar Lium, May 28 '10 at 12:58
the smarter way to get resource id from name is to use Resources.getIdentifier(String name, String defType, String defPackage). — Timuçin, May 07 '12 at 21:23
@Gunnar Lium...but i8mage is not showing in webview..!!Any help?? — kgandroid, Jun 04 '15 at 05:55
If the image is in a server then how we can get the image… in my case the image is dynamic… I can't use other image views because it's not certain that there must have to be an image… — Sourav Roy, Nov 26 '16 at 11:38

madhu527 · Answer 2 · 2017-01-19T05:28:29.810

I have implemented in my app ,taken referece from the pskink.thanx a lot

package com.example.htmltagimg;

import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;

import android.app.Activity;
import android.graphics.Bitmap;
import android.graphics.BitmapFactory;
import android.graphics.drawable.BitmapDrawable;
import android.graphics.drawable.Drawable;
import android.graphics.drawable.LevelListDrawable;
import android.os.AsyncTask;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.text.Html;
import android.text.Html.ImageGetter;
import android.text.Spanned;
import android.util.Log;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class MainActivity extends Activity implements ImageGetter {
private final static String TAG = "TestImageGetter";
private TextView mTv;

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
    String source = "this is a test of <b>ImageGetter</b> it contains " +
            "two images: <br/>" +
            "<img src=\"http://developer.android.com/assets/images/dac_logo.png\"><br/>and<br/>" +
            "<img src=\"http://www.hdwallpapersimages.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Winter-Tiger-Wild-Cat-Images.jpg\">";
    String imgs="<p><img alt=\"\" src=\"http://images.visitcanberra.com.au/images/canberra_hero_image.jpg\" style=\"height:50px; width:100px\" />Test Article, Test Article, Test Article, Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,v</p>";
    String src="<p><img alt=\"\" src=\"http://stylonica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Beauty-of-nature-random-4884759-1280-800.jpg\" />Test Attractions Test Attractions Test Attractions Test Attractions</p>";
    String img="<p><img alt=\"\" src=\"/site_media/photos/gallery/75b3fb14-3be6-4d14-88fd-1b9d979e716f.jpg\" style=\"height:508px; width:640px\" />Test Article, Test Article, Test Article, Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,Test Article,v</p>";
    Spanned spanned = Html.fromHtml(imgs, this, null);
    mTv = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.text);
    mTv.setText(spanned);
}

@Override
public Drawable getDrawable(String source) {
    LevelListDrawable d = new LevelListDrawable();
    Drawable empty = getResources().getDrawable(R.drawable.ic_launcher);
    d.addLevel(0, 0, empty);
    d.setBounds(0, 0, empty.getIntrinsicWidth(), empty.getIntrinsicHeight());

    new LoadImage().execute(source, d);

    return d;
}

class LoadImage extends AsyncTask<Object, Void, Bitmap> {

    private LevelListDrawable mDrawable;

    @Override
    protected Bitmap doInBackground(Object... params) {
        String source = (String) params[0];
        mDrawable = (LevelListDrawable) params[1];
        Log.d(TAG, "doInBackground " + source);
        try {
            InputStream is = new URL(source).openStream();
            return BitmapFactory.decodeStream(is);
        } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    protected void onPostExecute(Bitmap bitmap) {
        Log.d(TAG, "onPostExecute drawable " + mDrawable);
        Log.d(TAG, "onPostExecute bitmap " + bitmap);
        if (bitmap != null) {
            BitmapDrawable d = new BitmapDrawable(bitmap);
            mDrawable.addLevel(1, 1, d);
            mDrawable.setBounds(0, 0, bitmap.getWidth(), bitmap.getHeight());
            mDrawable.setLevel(1);
            // i don't know yet a better way to refresh TextView
            // mTv.invalidate() doesn't work as expected
            CharSequence t = mTv.getText();
            mTv.setText(t);
        }
    }
}
}

As per below @rpgmaker comment i added this answer

yes you can do using ResolveInfo class

check your file is supported with already installed apps or not

using below code:

private boolean isSupportedFile(File file) throws PackageManager.NameNotFoundException {
    PackageManager pm = mContext.getPackageManager();
    java.io.File mFile = new java.io.File(file.getFileName());
    Uri data = Uri.fromFile(mFile);
    Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
    intent.setDataAndType(data, file.getMimeType());
    List<ResolveInfo> resolveInfos = pm.queryIntentActivities(intent, PackageManager.MATCH_DEFAULT_ONLY);

    if (resolveInfos != null && resolveInfos.size() > 0) {
        Drawable icon = mContext.getPackageManager().getApplicationIcon(resolveInfos.get(0).activityInfo.packageName);
        Glide.with(mContext).load("").placeholder(icon).into(binding.fileAvatar);
        return true;
    } else {
        Glide.with(mContext).load("").placeholder(R.drawable.avatar_defaultworkspace).into(binding.fileAvatar);
        return false;
    }
}

Hey, what exactly is the purpose of "addlevel" and "setLevel" ? — Aeefire, Oct 01 '15 at 15:49
Is there a way of centralizing the images? It would also be good if we could tap them and have them shown in whatever image viewer app we have installed. — Aspiring Dev, Jan 18 '17 at 22:58
I think you forgot the context for my question. I know how to open an image file with an image viewer app but your answer puts bitmaps inside a TextView and as far as I could tell there is no way of discerning when a user is tapping a specific image inside of it. This is more of an issue if you have many images inside the textview. Is there a way to do this? — Aspiring Dev, Jan 19 '17 at 13:36
but one issue is that it scrolls very slow, can we do something about that? — Pratik Jamariya, Jun 19 '17 at 18:43

score 17 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 10 '14 at 11:25

This is what I use, which does not need you to hardcore your resource names and will look for the drawable resources first in your apps resources and then in the stock android resources if nothing was found - allowing you to use default icons and such.

private class ImageGetter implements Html.ImageGetter {

     public Drawable getDrawable(String source) {
        int id;

        id = getResources().getIdentifier(source, "drawable", getPackageName());

        if (id == 0) {
            // the drawable resource wasn't found in our package, maybe it is a stock android drawable?
            id = getResources().getIdentifier(source, "drawable", "android");
        }

        if (id == 0) {
            // prevent a crash if the resource still can't be found
            return null;    
        }
        else {
            Drawable d = getResources().getDrawable(id);
            d.setBounds(0,0,d.getIntrinsicWidth(),d.getIntrinsicHeight());
            return d;
        }
     }

 }

Which can be used as such (example):

String myHtml = "This will display an image to the right <img src='ic_menu_more' />";
myTextview.setText(Html.fromHtml(myHtml, new ImageGetter(), null);

This combination would be perfect with AsyncTask retrieving of internet. — Francis Rodrigues, Mar 18 '17 at 23:43
Thanks! It solved my problem. I only need local images, so just drop them to drawable folder and make sure to remove the image extention when calling it from html. — Dody Rachmat Wicaksono, Sep 30 '18 at 10:46
Thanks! But beware `source` may be null, and `getIdentifier()` crashes in this case. Better add an explicit check. — gmk57, Mar 21 '20 at 14:35

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 03 '11 at 02:03

I faced the same problem and I've found a pretty clean solution: After Html.fromHtml() you can run an AsyncTask that iterates over all the tags, fetches the images and then displays them.

Here you can find some code that you can use (but it needs some customization): https://gist.github.com/1190397

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Jan 17 '14 at 14:52

I used Dave Webb's answer but simplified it a bit. As long as the resource IDs will stay the same during runtime in your use-case, there's not really a need to write your own class implementing Html.ImageGetter and mess around with source-strings.

What I did was using the resource ID as a source-string:

final String img = String.format("<img src=\"%s\"/>", R.drawable.your_image);
final String html = String.format("Image: %s", img);

and use it directly:

Html.fromHtml(html, new Html.ImageGetter() {
  @Override
  public Drawable getDrawable(final String source) {
    Drawable d = null;
    try {
      d = getResources().getDrawable(Integer.parseInt(source));
      d.setBounds(0, 0, d.getIntrinsicWidth(), d.getIntrinsicHeight());
    } catch (Resources.NotFoundException e) {
      Log.e("log_tag", "Image not found. Check the ID.", e);
    } catch (NumberFormatException e) {
      Log.e("log_tag", "Source string not a valid resource ID.", e);
    }

    return d;
  }
}, null);

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 14 '20 at 07:56

KOTLIN

There is also the possibility to use sufficientlysecure.htmltextview.HtmlTextView

Use like below in gradle files:

Project gradle file:

repositories {
    jcenter()
}

App gradle file:

dependencies {
implementation 'org.sufficientlysecure:html-textview:3.9'
}

Inside xml file replace your textView with:

<org.sufficientlysecure.htmltextview.HtmlTextView
      android:id="@+id/allNewsBlockTextView"
      android:layout_width="match_parent"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:layout_margin="2dp"
      android:textColor="#000"
      android:textSize="18sp"
      app:htmlToString="@{detailsViewModel.selectedText}" />

Last line above is if you use Binding adapters where the code will be like:

@BindingAdapter("htmlToString")
fun bindTextViewHtml(textView: HtmlTextView, htmlValue: String) {

if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.N) {
    textView.setHtml(
        htmlValue,
        HtmlHttpImageGetter(textView, "n", true)
    );
    } else {
        textView.setHtml(
        htmlValue,
        HtmlHttpImageGetter(textView, "n", true)
        );
    }
}

More info from github page and a big thank you to the authors!!!!!

score 1 · Answer 7 · edited Dec 19 '12 at 05:50

1

Also, if you do want to do the replacement yourself, the character you need to look for is [ ].

But if you're using Eclipse, it will freak out when you type that letter into a [replace] statement telling you it conflicts with Cp1252 - this is an Eclipse bug. To fix it, go to

Window -> Preferences -> General -> Workspace -> Text file encoding,

and select [UTF-8]

edited Dec 19 '12 at 05:50

akjoshi

15,374
13
103
121

answered Jun 25 '10 at 04:20

splash

11
1

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Jun 25 '10 at 04:41

1

You could also write your own parser to pull the URL of all the images and then dynamically create new imageviews and pass in the urls.

answered Jun 25 '10 at 04:41

Falmarri

47,727
41
151
191

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Jan 05 '16 at 09:59

In case somebody think that resources must be declarative and using Spannable for multiple languages is a mess, I did some custom view

import android.content.Context;
import android.content.res.Resources;
import android.content.res.TypedArray;
import android.graphics.drawable.Drawable;
import android.text.Html;
import android.text.Html.ImageGetter;
import android.text.Spanned;
import android.util.AttributeSet;
import android.widget.TextView;

/**
 * XXX does not support android:drawable, only current app packaged icons
 *
 * Use it with strings like <string name="text"><![CDATA[Some text <img src="some_image"></img> with image in between]]></string>
 * assuming there is @drawable/some_image in project files
 *
 * Must be accompanied by styleable
 * <declare-styleable name="HtmlTextView">
 *    <attr name="android:text" />
 * </declare-styleable>
 */

public class HtmlTextView extends TextView {

    public HtmlTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
        super(context, attrs);
        TypedArray typedArray = context.obtainStyledAttributes(attrs, R.styleable.HtmlTextView);
        String html = context.getResources().getString(typedArray.getResourceId(R.styleable.HtmlTextView_android_text, 0));
        typedArray.recycle();

        Spanned spannedFromHtml = Html.fromHtml(html, new DrawableImageGetter(), null);
        setText(spannedFromHtml);
    }

    private class DrawableImageGetter implements ImageGetter {
        @Override
        public Drawable getDrawable(String source) {
            Resources res = getResources();
            int drawableId = res.getIdentifier(source, "drawable", getContext().getPackageName());
            Drawable drawable = res.getDrawable(drawableId, getContext().getTheme());

            int size = (int) getTextSize();
            int width = size;
            int height = size;

//            int width = drawable.getIntrinsicWidth();
//            int height = drawable.getIntrinsicHeight();

            drawable.setBounds(0, 0, width, height);
            return drawable;
        }
    }
}

track updates, if any, at https://gist.github.com/logcat/64234419a935f1effc67

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Aug 12 '23 at 11:55

If you want to get Image link from img tag of HTML.

HTML: 

"<img src=\"https://images.newindianexpress.com/uploads/user/imagelibrary/2023/8/10/original/Biden_China.jpg\" title=\"US bans 'certain' American investments in Chinese tech, Beijing calls it 'anti-globalisation'\" alt=\"US bans 'certain' American investments in Chinese tech, Beijing calls it 'anti-globalisation'\">"

I used below solution for my issue that is,


import android.content.Context
import android.util.Log
import android.widget.ImageView

fun getImageURLFromHTMLTag(context: Context, htmlTag: String): String {
    val indexOfSrc = htmlTag.indexOf("src=\"")
    if (indexOfSrc == -1) {
        Log.e("GetImageURLFromHTMLTag", "Couldn't find 'src=\"' in HTML tag")
        return ""
    }

    val indexOfQuote = htmlTag.indexOf("\"", indexOfSrc + 5)
    if (indexOfQuote == -1) {
        Log.e("GetImageURLFromHTMLTag", "Couldn't find '\"' in HTML tag")
        return ""
    }

    return htmlTag.substring(indexOfSrc + 5, indexOfQuote)
}

Is it possible to display inline images from html in an Android TextView?

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