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

Answer 1

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 2

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 3

If you want more control, you might want to check the TextPaint class. Here is how to use it:

final ClickableSpan clickableSpan = new ClickableSpan() {
    @Override
    public void onClick(final View textView) {
        //Your onClick code here
    }

    @Override
    public void updateDrawState(final TextPaint textPaint) {
        textPaint.setColor(yourContext.getResources().getColor(R.color.orange));
        textPaint.setUnderlineText(true);
    }
};

Answer 4

Here is a little help function. Great for when you have multiple languages!

private void setColor(TextView view, String fulltext, String subtext, int color) {
    view.setText(fulltext, TextView.BufferType.SPANNABLE);
    Spannable str = (Spannable) view.getText();
    int i = fulltext.indexOf(subtext);
    str.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(color), i, i + subtext.length(), Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
}

Answer 5

From the developer docs, to change the color and size of a spannable:

1- create a class:

    class RelativeSizeColorSpan(size: Float,@ColorInt private val color: Int): RelativeSizeSpan(size) {

    override fun updateDrawState(textPaint: TextPaint?) {
        super.updateDrawState(textPaint)
        textPaint?.color = color
    } 
}

2 Create your spannable using that class:

    val spannable = SpannableStringBuilder(titleNames)
spannable.setSpan(
    RelativeSizeColorSpan(1.5f, Color.CYAN), // Increase size by 50%
    titleNames.length - microbe.name.length, // start
    titleNames.length, // end
    Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_INCLUSIVE
)

Answer 6

String text = "I don't like Hasina.";
textView.setText(spannableString(text, 8, 14));

private SpannableString spannableString(String text, int start, int end) {
    SpannableString spannableString = new SpannableString(text);
    ColorStateList redColor = new ColorStateList(new int[][]{new int[]{}}, new int[]{0xffa10901});
    TextAppearanceSpan highlightSpan = new TextAppearanceSpan(null, Typeface.BOLD, -1, redColor, null);

    spannableString.setSpan(highlightSpan, start, end, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
    spannableString.setSpan(new BackgroundColorSpan(0xFFFCFF48), start, end, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
    spannableString.setSpan(new RelativeSizeSpan(1.5f), start, end, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

    return spannableString;
}

Output: