Make textview's content with both bold and regular text

Question

I'm using a textview to hold a string coming from a web service. String comes with a format like this. "sample text {{b}}bold text{{/b}} and so on". I need to show the bold text bold in my textview. in a single operation I just can pass the string. Do I have a chance to use a string with color, font, etc properties?

Note: I don t have problems with parsing the text I just want to find a way to pass my parsed text to textview.

Thanks

Answer 1

I solved this problem by using SpannableString, for who who needs code, can change this class as they wish

public class RichTextHelper {
public static SpannableStringBuilder getRichText(String text){
    SpannableStringBuilder builder=new SpannableStringBuilder();     
    String myText=text;
    boolean done=false;
    while(!done){
        if((myText.indexOf("{{b}}")>=0) && (myText.indexOf("{{b}}")<myText.indexOf("{{/b}}"))){
            int nIndex=myText.indexOf("{{b}}");
            String normalText=myText.substring(0,nIndex);
            builder.append(normalText);
            myText=myText.substring(nIndex+5);
        }else if((myText.indexOf("{{/b}}")>=0)){        
            int bIndex=myText.indexOf("{{/b}}");
            String boldText=myText.substring(0,bIndex);
            builder.append(boldText);

            myText=myText.substring(bIndex+6);
            int start=builder.length()-bIndex-1;
            int end =builder.length();//-1;
            if((start>=0) && (end>start)){
                builder.setSpan(new StyleSpan(Typeface.BOLD), start, end, 0);
            }

        }else{
            if(myText.contains("{{/b}}"))
                myText=myText.replace("{{/b}}", "");
            builder.append(myText);
            done=true;
        }
    }

    return builder;
}

}

Answer 2

When you set the text in your text view then use:

mytextview.setText(Html.fromHtml(sourceString));

then you will get the text in actual format.

Answer 3

I thought that the chosen answer didn't provide a satisfactory result. I have written my own function which takes 2 strings; The full text and the part of the text you want to make bold.

It returns a SpannableStringBuilder with the 'textToBold' from 'text' bolded.

I find the ability to make a substring bold without wrapping it in tags useful.

/**
 * Makes a substring of a string bold.
 * @param text          Full text
 * @param textToBold    Text you want to make bold
 * @return              String with bold substring
 */

public static SpannableStringBuilder makeSectionOfTextBold(String text, String textToBold){

    SpannableStringBuilder builder=new SpannableStringBuilder();

    if(textToBold.length() > 0 && !textToBold.trim().equals("")){

        //for counting start/end indexes
        String testText = text.toLowerCase(Locale.US);
        String testTextToBold = textToBold.toLowerCase(Locale.US);
        int startingIndex = testText.indexOf(testTextToBold);
        int endingIndex = startingIndex + testTextToBold.length();
        //for counting start/end indexes

        if(startingIndex < 0 || endingIndex <0){
            return builder.append(text);
        }
        else if(startingIndex >= 0 && endingIndex >=0){

            builder.append(text);
            builder.setSpan(new StyleSpan(Typeface.BOLD), startingIndex, endingIndex, 0);
        }
    }else{
        return builder.append(text);
    }

    return builder;

}