androidhyperlinktextviewclickable

How to make links in a TextView clickable


I have the following TextView defined:

<TextView 
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:text="@string/txtCredits"
    android:autoLink="web" android:id="@+id/infoTxtCredits"
    android:layout_centerInParent="true"
    android:linksClickable="true"/>

where @string/txtCredits is a string resource that contains <a href="some site">Link text</a>.

Android is highlighting the links in the TextView, but they do not respond to clicks. What am I doing wrong? Do I have to set an onClickListener for the TextView in my activity for something as simple as this?

It looks like it has to do with the way I define my string resource.

This does not work:

<string name="txtCredits"><a href="http://www.google.com">Google</a></string>

But this does:

<string name="txtCredits">www.google.com</string>

Which is a bummer because I would much rather show a text link than show the full URL.


Solution

  • Buried in the API demos, I found the solution to my problem:

    File Link.java:

        // text2 has links specified by putting <a> tags in the string
        // resource.  By default these links will appear but not
        // respond to user input.  To make them active, you need to
        // call setMovementMethod() on the TextView object.
    
        TextView t2 = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.text2);
        t2.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
    

    I removed most of the attributes on my TextView to match what was in the demo.

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/text2"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="@string/txtCredits"/>
    

    That solved it. It is pretty difficult to uncover and fix.

    Important: Don't forget to remove autoLink="web" if you are calling setMovementMethod().