Change the text color of a single ClickableSpan when pressed without affecting other ClickableSpans in the same TextView

Question

I have a TextView with multiple ClickableSpans in it. When a ClickableSpan is pressed, I want it to change the color of its text.

I have tried setting a color state

Answer 1

All these solutions are too much work.

Just set android:textColorLink in your TextView to some selector. Then create a clickableSpan with no need to override updateDrawState(...). All done.

here a quick example:

In your strings.xml have a declared string like this:

This is my message%1$s these words are highlighted%2$s and awesome. 

then in your activity:

private void createMySpan(){
    final String token = "#";
    String myString = getString(R.string.mystring,token,token);

    int start = myString.toString().indexOf(token);
    //we do -1 since we are about to remove the tokens afterwards so it shifts
    int finish = myString.toString().indexOf(token, start+1)-1;

    myString = myString.replaceAll(token, "");

    //create your spannable
    final SpannableString spannable = new SpannableString(myString);
    final ClickableSpan clickableSpan = new ClickableSpan() {
            @Override
            public void onClick(final View view) {
                doSomethingOnClick();
            }
        };

    spannable.setSpan(clickableSpan, start, finish, Spanned.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);

    mTextView.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
    mTextView.setText(spannable);
}

and heres the important parts ..declare a selector like this calling it myselector.xml:

And last in your TextView in xml do this:

Now you can have a pressed state on your clickableSpan.