Set color of TextView span in Android

Question

Is it possible to set the color of just span of text in a TextView?

I would like to do something similar to the Twitter app, in which a part of the text is blue. See image below:

Answer 1

Set Color on Text by passing String and color:

private String getColoredSpanned(String text, String color) {
  String input = "<font color=" + color + ">" + text + "</font>";
  return input;
}

Set text on TextView / Button / EditText etc by calling below code:

TextView:

TextView txtView = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.txtView);

Get Colored String:

String name = getColoredSpanned("Hiren", "#800000");

Set Text on TextView:

txtView.setText(Html.fromHtml(name));

Done

Answer 2

Just to add to the accepted answer, as all the answers seem to talk about android.graphics.Color only: what if the color I want is defined in res/values/colors.xml?

For example, consider Material Design colors defined in colors.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
    <color name="md_blue_500">#2196F3</color>
</resources>

(android_material_design_colours.xml is your best friend)

Then use ContextCompat.getColor(getContext(), R.color.md_blue_500) where you would use Color.BLUE, so that:

wordtoSpan.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.BLUE), 15, 30, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

becomes:

wordtoSpan.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(ContextCompat.getColor(getContext(), R.color.md_blue_500)), 15, 30, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

Where I found that:

• Working with spans in Android – Michael Spitsin – Medium

Answer 3

Another way that could be used in some situations is to set the link color in the properties of the view that is taking the Spannable.

If your Spannable is going to be used in a TextView, for example, you can set the link color in the XML like this:

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/myTextView"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:textColorLink="@color/your_color"
</TextView>

You can also set it in the code with:

TextView tv = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.myTextView);
tv.setLinkTextColor(your_color);

Answer 4

1. create textview in ur layout

2. paste this code in ur MainActivity

   TextView textview=(TextView)findViewById(R.id.textviewid);
   Spannable spannable=new SpannableString("Hello my name is sunil");
   spannable.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.BLUE), 0, 5, 
   Spannable.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
   textview.setText(spannable);
   //Note:- the 0,5 is the size of colour which u want to give the strring
   //0,5 means it give colour to starting from h and ending with space i.e.(hello), if you want to change size and colour u can easily
   

Answer 5

I always find visual examples helpful when trying to understand a new concept.

Background Color

SpannableString spannableString = new SpannableString("Hello World!");
BackgroundColorSpan backgroundSpan = new BackgroundColorSpan(Color.YELLOW);
spannableString.setSpan(backgroundSpan, 0, spannableString.length(), Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
textView.setText(spannableString);

Foreground Color

SpannableString spannableString = new SpannableString("Hello World!");
ForegroundColorSpan foregroundSpan = new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.RED);
spannableString.setSpan(foregroundSpan, 0, spannableString.length(), Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
textView.setText(spannableString);

Combination

SpannableString spannableString = new SpannableString("Hello World!");
ForegroundColorSpan foregroundSpan = new ForegroundColorSpan(Color.RED);
BackgroundColorSpan backgroundSpan = new BackgroundColorSpan(Color.YELLOW);
spannableString.setSpan(foregroundSpan, 0, 8, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
spannableString.setSpan(backgroundSpan, 3, spannableString.length(), Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
textView.setText(spannableString);

Further Study

• Explain the meaning of Span flags like SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE
• Android Spanned, SpannedString, Spannable, SpannableString and CharSequence

Answer 6

Here's a Kotlin Extension Function I have for this

    fun TextView.setColouredSpan(word: String, color: Int) {
        val spannableString = SpannableString(text)
        val start = text.indexOf(word)
        val end = text.indexOf(word) + word.length
        try {
            spannableString.setSpan(ForegroundColorSpan(color), start, end,Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE)
            text = spannableString
        } catch (e: IndexOutOfBoundsException) {
         println("'$word' was not not found in TextView text")
    }
}

Use it after you have set your text to the TextView like so

private val blueberry by lazy { getColor(R.color.blueberry) }

textViewTip.setColouredSpan("Warning", blueberry)