Android: Statically underline dynamic text in TextView

Question

I would like to make a TextView to be entirely underlined but I can't use a text resource and <u> tag because it is dynamic text.

Related: Can I underline text in an android layout?

So far the only way I know to do this is at runtime. Is this really the only way? Is there a way I could do it in the XML files?

Answer 1

The easiest solution is probably to create a custom UnderLineTextView component deriving from TextView, override setText() and set the entire text as underlined, something like this (underline code from the link you referred to above):

@Override
public void setText(CharSequence text, BufferType type) {
    // code to check text for null omitted
    SpannableString content = new SpannableString(text);
    content.setSpan(new UnderlineSpan(), 0, text.length(), 0);
    super.setText(content, BufferType.SPANNABLE);

}

It's then just a matter of using your new component in the layout and setting the text as usual. The rest is handled automatically.

More info on custom components: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/custom-components.html

Answer 2

You can underline text over Html.fromHtml(String source)

Example:

textView.setText(Html.fromHtml("this is <u>underlined</u> text"));

Answer 3

You can also do this via the /res/values/string.xml file if you prefer: For example, in the /res/values/string.xml you could add an entry like:

<string name="createAccount"><u>Create Account</u></string>

And then in the onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) method of your activity you would add the following code to cause "Create Account"> to appear as underlined in the UI that you set for the createAccountText TextView that you defined in the xml file in /res/layout/ for your activity:

TextView createAccountText = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.createAccountText);
Resources res = getResources();
CharSequence styledText = res.getText(R.string.createAccount);
createAccountText.setText(styledText, TextView.BufferType.SPANNABLE);

Answer 4

peter3 wrote before to extend TextView class and override setText method.

This solution won't work as setText method is marked as FINAL.

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/TextView.html#setText(java.lang.CharSequence)

Not sure if the code could work with some modifications.

Answer 5

 SpannableString content = new SpannableString(name);
 content.setSpan(new UnderlineSpan(), 0, name.length(), 0);
 geometrical_textview.setText(content, TextView.BufferType.SPANNABLE);