String array text formatting

Question

I have this String:

    String[] text = {"Address 1: Street nr.45 ",
         "Address 2: Street nr.67",
         "Address 3: Street nr. 56 \n Phone number: 000000000"};

Which gets used later by:

        ((TextView)findViewById(R.id.adresa)).setText(text[newSelectedAddress]);

when selecting an item from a spinner.

How can I add formatting to the text inside the string?? I want Address to be with bold, Street nr. with Italic

Answer 1

You have to use Spannables. Although creating them is a bit wordy and seems complex, it isn't rocket science. An example:

String source = "This is example text";
SpannedString out = new SpannedString(source);
StyleSpan boldSpan = new StyleSpan(Typeface.BOLD);
StyleSpan boldSpan2 = new StyleSpan(Typeface.BOLD);
out.setSpan(boldSpan, 1, 3, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
out.setSpan(boldSpan2, 9, 12, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

Result: This is example text

You then setText this Spannable instead of the normal String.

Answer 2

Do Like this my dear friend:

String[] text = {"Address 1: Street nr.45 ",
             "Address 2: Street nr.67",
             "Address 3: Street nr. 56 \n Phone number: 000000000"};
    String tempString = text[newSelectedAddress];
    CharSequence charSeq= new SpannedString(tempString);
    Spannable spannable = (Spannable) charSeq;
    StyleSpan boldSpan = new StyleSpan(Typeface.BOLD);
    StyleSpan boldSpan2 = new StyleSpan(Typeface.ITALIC);
    spannable.setSpan(boldSpan, 0, "Address".length()-1, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
    spannable.setSpan(boldSpan2, tempString.indexOf("Street"), tempString.indexOf("Street")-1 +"Street".length()-1, Spannable.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
    ((TextView)findViewById(R.id.adresa)).setText(spannable);

Thanks

Answer 3

There's a bit of a hack to allow strings to recognize html for bold and italic formatting. Add something like this to your strings.xml:

<string name="address"><![CDATA[<b>Address %1$s</b>: <i>Street nr. %2$s </i>]]></string>

Then:

Resources res = getResources();
formattedString = res.getString(R.string.address, "1", "45");
// equivalent to String.format(res.getString(R.string.address), "1", "45")
Spannable s = Html.from Html(formattedString);
textView.setText(s);