Android: Is it possible to have multiple styles inside a TextView?

Question

I was wondering if its possible to set multiple styles for different pieces of text inside a TextView. For instance, I am setting the text as follows:

descbox.setText(line1 + "\n" + line2 + "\n" + word1 + "\t" + word2 + "\t" + word3);

Now, is it possible to have a different style for each text element? I mean bold for line1, normal for word1 and so on...

I found this http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/faq/commontasks.html#selectingtext:

// Get our EditText object.
EditText vw = (EditText)findViewById(R.id.text);

// Set the EditText's text.
vw.setText("Italic, highlighted, bold.");

// If this were just a TextView, we could do:
// vw.setText("Italic, highlighted, bold.", TextView.BufferType.SPANNABLE);
// to force it to use Spannable storage so styles can be attached.
// Or we could specify that in the XML.

// Get the EditText's internal text storage
Spannable str = vw.getText();

// Create our span sections, and assign a format to each.
str.setSpan(new StyleSpan(android.graphics.Typeface.ITALIC), 0, 7, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
str.setSpan(new BackgroundColorSpan(0xFFFFFF00), 8, 19, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
str.setSpan(new StyleSpan(android.graphics.Typeface.BOLD), 21, str.length() - 1, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

But it uses position numbers inside the text. Is there a cleaner way to do this?

Answer 1

Try Html.fromHtml(), and mark up your text with bold and italic HTML tags (e.g., Html.fromHtml("This mixes <b>bold</b> and <i>italic</i> stuff);).

Answer 2

In case, anyone is wondering how to do this, here's one way: (Thanks to Mark again!)

mBox = new TextView(context);
mBox.setText(Html.fromHtml("<b>" + title + "</b>" +  "<br />" + 
            "<small>" + description + "</small>" + "<br />" + 
            "<small>" + DateAdded + "</small>"));

Answer 3

A really late response here but the list of supported tags is here: http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/faq/commontasks.html#selectingtext

It also shows that Html.fromHtml isn't really needed