Develop Reference

How to make links among other text focusable for accessibility

I have a CheckedTextBox whose text is made up of two SpannableStrings, one of which is a URLSpan.
My question is, how do I make so that a user can move the accessibility focus through each span, eventually focusing on the URLspan itself? setMovementMethod and setLinksClickable doesn't seem to work for me.
SpannableStringBuilder builder = new SpannableStringBuilder();
SpannableString label = new SpannableString(getString(R.string.label));
label.setSpan(new ForegroundColorSpan(getResources().getColor(R.color.text_color_primary)), 0, label.length(), Spanned.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
builder.append(label);
SpannableString link = new SpannableString(getString(R.string.link);
link.setSpan(new URLSpan(mUrl), 0, link.length(), Spanned.SPAN_EXCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE);
builder.append(link);
builder.append(".");
mCheckedTextBox.setText(builder);
//The following two methods do not work for what I'm trying to accomplish:
mCheckedTextBox.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
mCheckedTextBox.setLinksClickable(true);
I've checked on the Android Accessibility Help documentation and it seems that as long as the user hears a chime and can see the link in the local context menu, it is sufficient. However, I wanted to see if I can go that extra mile to enable the user to scroll and focus to the link portion of the text.
https://support.google.com/accessibility/android/answer/6378148?hl=en
Any help would be appreciated.

This isn't supported by the platform. Android's own documentation directs users to open the Local Context Menu to access links in TextViews:
https://support.google.com/accessibility/android/answer/6378148?hl=en

Maybe this can be the easiest solution..it worked for me.
textView.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
#Override
public void onClick(View v) {
ClassroomLog.log(TAG, "Textview Click listener ");
if (textView.getSelectionStart() == -1 && textView.getSelectionEnd() == -1){
// Perform your action here
}
}
});

Link spans are lost from ListView's convertView

Why links in ListView are lost, when scrolling? From debugging it's clear, that spans are not added second time on a TextView from the convertView.
Here's a piece of code which is called from adapter's getView.
...
String body = MyItemDetails.getBody(); // String to linkify
final Spannable spannable = MyCustomUri.addHashtagSpans(context, body);
viewHolder.textView.setText(spannable);
viewHolder.textView.setTextIsSelectable(true); // adds additional spans
viewHolder.textView.setMovementMethod(ArrowKeyMovementMethod.getInstance());
viewHolder.textView.setAutoLinkMask(Linkify.WEB_URLS);
...
MyCustomUri.addHashtagSpans() creates a SpannableString with MyCustomSpan with extends URLSpan.
Problem is that when I scroll up and down in the ListView links are lost. Whereas when screen is opened 1st time it's set correctly.
Now I made a dirty fix by disabling reuse of convertView :( Any ideas how to solve this problem better?

Some of the spannable information is likely being lost when the textview's data is written to a parcel for retention.
See TextView.onSaveInstanceState(), TextView.onRestoreInstanceState(), and TextView.SavedState.
It can often be very frustrating to determine what android will and will not retain. I often just setSaveEnabled(false) on my views to disable the unpredictable default behaviours of the base widgets.
Also, the viewholder pattern is only really intended for retaining view/layout instance hierarchies. To save you from having to inflate or find your views every getView(). It's always your responsibility to update a view's data when presenting it from getView().
You don't need to completely disable the viewholder pattern, instead just simply update the text every getView(), as you may already be doing.

Hello Use this custom class
public class MyCustomSpannable extends ClickableSpan {
String Url;
Context mContext;
public MyCustomSpannable(String Url, Context context) {
this.Url = Url;
mContext = context;
}
#Override
public void updateDrawState(TextPaint ds) {
// Customize your Text Look if required
ds.setColor(mContext.getResources().getColor(R.color.red_text));
ds.setFakeBoldText(true);
// ds.setStrikeThruText(true);
ds.setTypeface(CommonFunctios.getfontNormal(mContext));
// ds.setUnderlineText(true);
// ds.setShadowLayer(10, 1, 1, Color.WHITE);
// ds.setTextSize(15);
}
#Override
public void onClick(View widget) {
}
public String getUrl() {
return Url;
}
}
and in adapter replace your code with this
String text = holder.txt_terms.getText().toString();
SpannableStringBuilder stringBuilder = new SpannableStringBuilder(text);
MyCustomSpannable customSpannable = new MyCustomSpannable(text,
mcontext) {
#Override
public void onClick(View widget) {
Log.e("on click", "message");
((OpticalOffersActivity) mcontext).callDialogBox(position);
}
};
stringBuilder.setSpan(customSpannable, 0, text.length(),
Spannable.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_INCLUSIVE);
holder.txt_terms.setText(stringBuilder, BufferType.SPANNABLE.SPANNABLE);
holder.txt_terms.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
Hope it will help you.

if(convertView==null)
{
convertView.setTag(holder);
}
else
{
holder = (ViewHolder)convertView.getTag();
}
...
String body = MyItemDetails.getBody(); // String to linkify
final Spannable spannable = MyCustomUri.addHashtagSpans(context, body);
viewHolder.textView.setText(spannable);
viewHolder.textView.setTextIsSelectable(true); // adds additional spans
viewHolder.textView.setMovementMethod(ArrowKeyMovementMethod.getInstance());
viewHolder.textView.setAutoLinkMask(Linkify.WEB_URLS);
...
That spannable code must be placed outside the if-else loop in the getView() method, like the way I did it in the above code.

There are a couple problems at play here, so let me address them one at a time. The issues you've asked about directly (links disappearing) is a side effect of the fact that the auto linking behavior in TextView doesn't necessarily work that well when you are also adding your own spans to the text manually...best not to use it. Remove the setAutoLinkMask() trigger and the disappearing links issue will go away.
Instead, you can easily add the same web linking behavior directly into your text span with Linkify. However, this is only part of your problem. The MovementMethod you have chosen isn't really compatible with clickable links. The reason it (partially) works in your code now is because the auto link mask is causing the MovementMethod of the view to be secretly massaged under the hood to a LinkMovementMethod...which then gets reset after the view is recycled. A pattern I typically use (applied to your code example) would be:
final Spannable spannable = MyCustomUri.addHashtagSpans(context, body);
Linkify.addLinks(spannable, Linkify.WEB_URLS);
viewHolder.textView.setText(spannable);
addLinkMovementMethod(textView);
Where addLinkMovementMethod() is a helper I have that looks like this:
private void addLinkMovementMethod(TextView t) {
MovementMethod m = t.getMovementMethod();
if ((m == null) || !(m instanceof LinkMovementMethod)) {
if (t.getLinksClickable()) {
t.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
}
}
}
This simply keeps from resetting the value on each view recycle if it isn't necessary. The previous code block will give you links that click properly and never disappear...
However, I'm guessing from the methods you've called that you are also attempting to make the linked text in the list selectable (e.g. calling setTextIsSelectable() and choosing the ArrowKeyMovementMethod). This gets a little trickier because of the MovementMethod issue I discussed above. In order to create a MovementMethod that supports both link clicks and text selection, I'll direct you to this existing SO post on the subject which includes sample code on the customizations you need to make: Can a TextView be selectable AND contain links?

Using Images in a Custom IME

I have been attempting to implement a custom SoftKeyboard (IME) which contains and outputs icons for keys. Think emoji. I have skinned the keys, but injecting the selected drawable into the String Builder has proven difficult. I decided to implement my own ImageGetter so that I could control what was returned by Html.fromHtml(). The fromHtml method continues to act as if it's returning null even though I know that the drawable is not null.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I based this project off of the SoftKeyboard sample. I targeted the file, SoftKeyboard.java an instance of
public class SoftKeyboard extends InputMethodService
implements KeyboardView.OnKeyboardActionListener
This class instantiates an object mComposing, this is used to store the text entered into the edit box from the soft keyboard.
private StringBuilder mComposing = new StringBuilder();
I thought that I could append the images as a Spanned to the StringBuilder and display the image that way. What happens here is that a white square with "obj" text in it shows instead of the selected icon, meaning getDrawable() is returning null.
I have tried a few things with the bounds but I am not sure if I am close or if I am going down the wrong path.
Declaring my drawable in onCreate:
mHangingDrawable = getResources().getDrawable(R.drawable.hanging_tiny);
mHangingDrawable.setBounds(0, 0, mHangingDrawable.getIntrinsicWidth(), mHangingDrawable.getIntrinsicHeight());
In handleCharacter(int, int[]) I wrote this catch for codes that I have personally mapped.
else if (primaryCode == 50) {
String htmlSource = "<img src='hanging_small' />";
ImageGetter ig = new ImageGetter(){
#Override
public Drawable getDrawable(String source) {
return mHangingDrawable;
}
};
Spanned htmlSpan = Html.fromHtml(htmlSource, ig, null);
mComposing.append(htmlSpan);
getCurrentInputConnection().commitText(mComposing, 1);
}
This article about Creating Input Methods was a helpful resource.

Get the position of the selected row from ScrollPickerView ( a custom ui picker view for android )

I am developing in android and i have a requirement for making a custom ui picker view like the one in iphone for which i am using the code from the link
http://code.google.com/p/scroll-picker-view-for-android/
here in the
scrollPickerViewListener = this;
scrollPickerView = new ScrollPickerView(this);
scrollPickerView.addSlot(getResources().getStringArray(R.array.custom_list), 1, ScrollPickerView.ScrollType.Ranged);
scrollPickerView.setSlotIndex(0, 13);
ViewGroup.LayoutParams params = new
ViewGroup.LayoutParams(LayoutParams.FILL_PARENT, 200);
this.setContentView(scrollPickerView, params);
how to get the index of the selected item from the pickerview when the user scrolls

I would first ask why you would want to create an iPhone picker instead of using ones made for Android, anyways...
I checked some of the source code of the library you are using and it seems that the developer of this library thought it was funny to leave absolutely no comments behind. It extends from a ListView so it shouldn't be that hard.
A quick glance shows a ScrollPickerViewListener. You should probably use that. Try this.
scrollPickerView.setScrollPickerViewListener(){
public void onSingleTapUp(int index){
}
}
Or...
#Override
public void onSingleTapUp(int slotId) {
Toast.makeText(this, ""+slotId, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
}

Make a custom keyboard in Android having the same behavior as the soft keyboard

So, today I decided to try out Android, so please understand that I am a beginner in it.
What I want to achieve right now is to have a EditText, and a set of buttons to be used to enter data into the EditText.
What I've done currently is stick a set of button widgets in the XML layout, and I use this code to make the buttons insert stuff into the EditText:
final EditText inputline = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.textentry);
final Button my_button = (Button) findViewById(R.id.my_btn);
my_button.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
public void onClick(View v) {
inputline.append("a");
}
});
This kind of works, but I need help with a few issues:
it always appends the character at the end of the string, not at the current cursor position
similarly, when I call inputline.selectAll() and press my button, it inserts the text at the end of the string again; whereas I want it to delete the text first (as it's selected) and then insert the character
it seems tedious to write all that code for each of the buttons I have. Is there a better way to do this altogether?
Thanks for your help!

I have now pretty much solved by replacing inputline.append("a"); etc. with my custom function, lineInsert(), which you can see below.
public void lineInsert(CharSequence text) {
final EditText inputline = (EditText) findViewById(R.id.textentry);
int start = inputline.getSelectionStart();
int end = inputline.getSelectionEnd();
inputline.getText().replace(Math.min(start,end), Math.max(start,end), text, 0, text.length());
inputline.setSelection(inputline.getSelectionEnd());
}
This has the same behavior as the soft keyboard.