Using Linkify in ListView's ArrayAdapter causes RuntimeException

Question

I have a TextView in my ArrayAdapter that may contain some hyperlinks. For those links I use Linkify:

public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
    View rowView = convertView;
    if (rowView == null) {
        rowView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.list_item_2, null);
        holder = new ViewHolder();

        holder.content = (TextView) rowView.findViewById(R.id.postContent);
        holder.date = (TextView) rowView.findViewById(R.id.postDate);

        rowView.setTag(holder);
    } else {
        holder = (ViewHolder) rowView.getTag();
    }

    holder.content.setText(contents.get(position));
    holder.date.setText(dates.get(position));

    Linkify.addLinks(holder.content, Linkify.ALL);

    return rowView;
}

But because the Linkify is added in the ArrayAdapter, I get an exception saying this:

08-05 16:42:16.715: E/AndroidRuntime(20598): FATAL EXCEPTION: main
08-05 16:42:16.715: E/AndroidRuntime(20598): android.util.AndroidRuntimeException: Calling startActivity() from outside of an Activity  context requires the FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK flag. Is this really what you want?
08-05 16:42:16.715: E/AndroidRuntime(20598):    at android.app.ContextImpl.startActivity(ContextImpl.java:921)
08-05 16:42:16.715: E/AndroidRuntime(20598):    at android.content.ContextWrapper.startActivity(ContextWrapper.java:283)
08-05 16:42:16.715: E/AndroidRuntime(20598):    at android.text.style.URLSpan.onClick(URLSpan.java:62)

How can I make this work? I can't think of an alternative.

Answer 1

Looking at the exception in the log, it seems that you used the application context when you allocate your ArrayAdapter. For example, if your code looks similar to the following:

    listView.setAdapter(new ArrayAdapter<String>(context,
            android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1,
            data) {
        @Override
        public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
            // ...
        }
    });

You must have initialized the context variable above with the application context, like this:

    Context context = getApplicationContext();

To avoid the error, you should have initialized it with your Activity instance instead:

    Context context = this;

Or, if your code is in a Fragment:

    Context context = getActivity();

Answer 2

If you are interested to open a link, you can use

String text = "<a href=\"http://www.google.co.in/\">Google</a>";
holder.content.setText(Html.fromHtml(text));
holder.content.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());

this would would work fine for you inside a ListView.

Answer 3

In your Activity.Java while binding your list with adapter

YourAdapter yourAdapter = new YourAdapter(YourCurrentActivityName.this, YourArrayList);
yourListView.setAdapter(yourAdapter); 

In YourAdapter.java in Constructor make sure it's Activity not Context

public YourAdapter(Activity context, YourArrayList list){
    this.context = context;
    this.list = list;
}

And, use this code for your textview in your adapter for Linkify.

holder.yourTextView.setLinksClickable(true);
holder.yourTextView.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
Linkify.addLinks(holder.yourTextView, Linkify.ALL);
holder.yourTextView.setAutoLinkMask(Linkify.ALL);