Select + copy text in a TextView?
AndroidAndroid Problem Overview
Is there a way to allow the user to select / copy text in a TextView? I need the same functionality of EditText where you can long-press the control and get the popup options of select all / copy, but I need the control to look like a TextView.
Tried a few things like making an EditText use the editable="none" option or inputType="none", but those still retain the framed background of an EditText, which I don't want,
Thanks
------- Update ----------------------
This is 99% there, all I'd want is for the selection hilight to be visible (the orange stuff). Other than that it's good, could live with this though:
<EditText
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:editable="false"
style="?android:attr/textViewStyle"
android:textColor="@color/white"
android:textAppearance="@android:style/TextAppearance.Medium"
android:cursorVisible="false"
android:background="@null" />
I guess it's being caused because of cursorVisible="false" but without that the cursor is present even without any selection being made.
Android Solutions
Solution 1 - Android
android:textIsSelectable works (at least in ICS - I haven't yet checked in earlier versions)
<TextView
android:id="@+id/deviceIdTV"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:textIsSelectable="true"
android:text="" />
Solution 2 - Android
Text View needs to be enabled, focusable, longClickable and textIsSelectable
<TextView
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text=""
android:id="@+id/pwTextView"
android:enabled="true"
android:textIsSelectable="true"
android:focusable="true"
android:longClickable="true" />
Solution 3 - Android
I think I have a better solution.
Just call
registerForContextMenu(yourTextView);
and your TextView
will be registered for receiving context menu events.
Then override onCreateContextMenu
in your Activity
@Override
public void onCreateContextMenu(ContextMenu menu, View v, ContextMenuInfo menuInfo) {
//user has long pressed your TextView
menu.add(0, v.getId(), 0, "text that you want to show in the context menu - I use simply Copy");
//cast the received View to TextView so that you can get its text
TextView yourTextView = (TextView) v;
//place your TextView's text in clipboard
ClipboardManager clipboard = (ClipboardManager) getSystemService(CLIPBOARD_SERVICE);
clipboard.setText(yourTextView.getText());
}
Hope this helps you and anyone else looking for a way to copy text from a TextView
Solution 4 - Android
textview1.setTextIsSelectable(true);
This will enable user to select and copy text on long clicking or as we do usually
Solution 5 - Android
I'm trying to implement the same, and your question helped me to set my editext layout correctly. So Thanks! :)
Then I realized, that the highlight will actually be visible if the cursor is on. But I just like you do not want to see a cursor before long clicking on the text, so I hide the cursor in the layout.xml file just like you, and added an eventlistener for long click and display the cursor only when a selection starts.
So add the listener in your Activity in the onCreate section:
public TextView htmltextview;
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.main);
...
htmltextview.setOnLongClickListener(new OnLongClickListener(){
public boolean onLongClick(View v) {
htmltextview.setCursorVisible(true);
return false;
}
});
}
And voilá, no cursor at the beginning, and if you long-click, the cursor appears with the selection boundaries.
I hope I could help.
Cheers, fm
Solution 6 - Android
Using Kotlin Programmatically (Manual Copy)
button.setTextIsSelectable(true)
Or, add a Kotlin property extension
var TextView.selectable
get() = isTextSelectable
set(value) = setTextIsSelectable(value)
Then call
textview.selectable = true
// or
if (textview.selectable) { ...
Using Kotlin Programmatically (Auto-Copy)
If you want to auto-copy when user long-presses you view, this is the base code required:
myView.setOnLongClickListener {
val clipboardManager = context.getSystemService(CLIPBOARD_SERVICE) as ClipboardManager
val clip = ClipData.newPlainText("Copied String", myString)
clipboardManager.setPrimaryClip(clip)
true // Or false if not consumed
}
You may want to add a Toast
to confirm it happened
Or, add a Kotlin extension function
myView.copyOnHold() // pass custom string to not use view contents
fun TextView.copyOnHold(customText: String? = null) {
setOnLongClickListener {
val clipboardManager = context.getSystemService(CLIPBOARD_SERVICE) as ClipboardManager
val clip = ClipData.newPlainText("Copied String", customText ?: text)
clipboardManager.setPrimaryClip(clip)
true // Or false if not consumed
}
}
Using Xml (Manual Copy)
Add this to your <TextView>
android:textIsSelectable="true"
> NOTE: All of these require android:enabled="true"
and android:focusable="true"
, which are the default values for a TextView
.
Solution 7 - Android
I was also trying to do something similar but still needed a custom approach with manipulation of highlighting of text in TextView. I triggered highlight and copying on LongClick
action.
This is how I managed using SpannableString
:
SpannableString highlightString = new SpannableString(textView.getText());
highlightString.setSpan(new BackgroundColorSpan(ContextCompat.getColor(getActivity(), R.color.gray))
, 0, textView.getText().length(), Spanned.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_INCLUSIVE);
textView.setText(highlightString);
copyToClipboard(urlToShare);
and the copy function:
public void copyToClipboard(String copyText) {
ClipboardManager clipboard = (ClipboardManager) getActivity().getSystemService(Context.CLIPBOARD_SERVICE);
ClipData clip = ClipData.newPlainText("url", copyText);
clipboard.setPrimaryClip(clip);
Toast toast = Toast.makeText(getActivity(), "Link is copied", Toast.LENGTH_SHORT);
toast.show();
}
I hope it's helpful for someone who ends up on this question :)
Solution 8 - Android
Just use this simple library: GitHub: Selectable TextView