Develop Reference

How to disable all buttons in a Layout?

The way app works is the following: App prompts 30 buttons to user and user may guess the right ones by tapping. When user taps some button all the buttons (say a view containing these buttons) should be locked while corresponding (right or wrong guess) animation is playing. Tapped button by itself should be disabled till the next round. After animation is finished all not tapped previously buttons (say a view containing these buttons) should be available again.
So I have a Layout which includes another layout with these 30 buttons:
...
<RelativeLayout
android:id="#+id/alphabetContainer"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content">
<include layout="#layout/alphabet" />
</RelativeLayout>
...
Now I need to lock the buttons from being clicked and then unlock. So I tried:
...
private RelativeLayout alphabetPanel;
...
public void onCreate(){
...
alphabetPanel = (RelativeLayout) findViewById(R.id.alphabetContainer);
...
}
...
private void lockButtons(){
alphabetPanel.setEnabled(false);
}
but this doesn't lock buttons. I also tried:
alphabetPanel.setFocusable(false);
alphabetPanel.setClickable(false);
Doesn't help either. Seems like it all relies only to a layout by itself but not the views it contains.
Also I tried to add a fake layout to place it over layout with buttons by bringing it to the front. This is a workaround and its tricky cuz both layouts must be placed inside a RelativeLayout only:
...
blockingLayout = new RelativeLayout(this);
blockingLayout.setLayoutParams(alphabetPanel.getLayoutParams());
...
but this works very strange: somehow both layouts in this case appears and disappears every second or so or doesn't appear at all - I cant understand that at all cuz there is no setVisibility() method used in code!
The only one way left is to iterate every view (button) to make it disabled and than back.
Is there any other way?
UPDATE
Finally I had to add a "wall"-layout into the xml. Now by making it clickable and focusable it becomes a solution.

Try setting for each Button's xml definition
android:duplicateParentState="true"
I'm not sure, but I think it should make them not only to seem disabled, but also to act accordingly.

Hmm it surprises me that disabling the parent-layout doesn't work.. as far as i know it should.
Try fetching your included layout instead, and disable that.
Anyway, if all else fails you can always loop through the buttons themselves.
for(int i=0;i<relativeLayout.getChildCount();i++){
View child=relativeLayout.getChildAt(i);
//your processing....
child.setEnabled(false);
}

I used extension to lock and unlock the view
//lock
fun View.lock() {
isEnabled = false
isClickable = false}
//unlock
fun View.unlock() {
isEnabled = true
isClickable = true}
if you want to lock all children of the view group
//lock children of the view group
fun ViewGroup.lockAllChildren() {
views().forEach { it.lock() }}
//unlock children of the view group
fun ViewGroup.unlockAllChildren() {
views().forEach { it.unlock() }}

firstly define your button
Button bit = (Button)findViewById(R.id.but);
bit.setEnabled(false);
and set enabled false;

Java:-
public void disableButtons(Layout layout) {
// Get all touchable views
ArrayList<View> layoutButtons = layout.getTouchables();
// loop through them, if they are instances of Button, disable them.
for(View v : layoutButtons){
if( v instanceof Button ) {
((Button)v).setEnabled(false);
}
}
}
Kotlin:-
fun disableButtons(layout: Layout) {
// Get all touchable views
val layoutButtons: ArrayList<View> = layout.getTouchables()
// loop through them, if they are instances of Button, disable them.
for (v in layoutButtons) {
if (v is Button) {
(v as Button).setEnabled(false)
}
}
}
Retrieve all touchables views into an ArrayList, then loop through them and check if it is an instance of the Button or TextView or which ever you want, then disable it!

In case data binding is needed
import android.view.ViewGroup
import android.widget.Button
import androidx.core.view.children
import androidx.databinding.BindingAdapter
#BindingAdapter("disableButtons")
fun ViewGroup.setDisableButtons(disableButtons: Boolean) {
children.forEach {
(it as? Button)?.isEnabled = !disableButtons
}
}
Usage:
<androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:padding="#dimen/guideline"
app:disableButtons="#{vm.busy}">
....
</androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout>

Might work in constraint layout . Use group widget and add all the button ids.
In the java code set enabled false for the group.

For disable all buttons in any nested layouts.
void DisableAllButtons( ViewGroup viewGroup ){
for( int i = 0; i < viewGroup.getChildCount(); i++ ){
if( viewGroup.getChildAt(i) instanceof ViewGroup ){
DisableAllButtons( (ViewGroup) viewGroup.getChildAt(i) );
}else if( viewGroup.getChildAt(i) instanceof Button ){
viewGroup.getChildAt(i).setEnabled( false );
}
}
}

write these two lines on your button declartion in XML
android:setEnabled="false"
android:clickable="false"

How to remove focus without setting focus to another control?

I like my UIs to be intuitive; each screen should naturally and unobtrusively guide the user on to the next step in the app. Barring that, I strive to make things as confusing and confounding as possible.
Just kidding :-)
I've got three TableRows, each containing a read-only and non-focusable EditText control and then a button to its right. Each button starts the same activity but with a different argument. The user makes a selection there and the sub-activity finishes, populating the appropriate EditText with the user's selection.
It's the classic cascading values mechanism; each selection narrows the available options for the next selection, etc. Thus I'm disabling both controls on each of the next rows until the EditText on the current row contains a value.
I need to do one of two things, in this order of preference:
When a button is clicked, immediately remove focus without setting focus to a different button
Set focus to the first button when the activity starts
The problem manifests after the sub-activity returns; the button that was clicked retains focus.
Re: #1 above - There doesn't appear to be a removeFocus() method, or something similar
Re: #2 above - I can use requestFocus() to set focus to the button on the next row, and that works after the sub-activity returns, but for some reason it doesn't work in the parent activity's onCreate().
I need UI consistency in either direction--either no buttons have focus after the sub-activity finishes or each button receives focus depending on its place in the logic flow, including the very first (and only) active button prior to any selection.

Using clearFocus() didn't seem to be working for me either as you found (saw in comments to another answer), but what worked for me in the end was adding:
<LinearLayout
android:id="#+id/my_layout"
android:focusable="true"
android:focusableInTouchMode="true" ...>
to my very top level Layout View (a linear layout). To remove focus from all Buttons/EditTexts etc, you can then just do
LinearLayout myLayout = (LinearLayout) activity.findViewById(R.id.my_layout);
myLayout.requestFocus();
Requesting focus did nothing unless I set the view to be focusable.

Old question, but I came across it when I had a similar issue and thought I'd share what I ended up doing.
The view that gained focus was different each time so I used the very generic:
View current = getCurrentFocus();
if (current != null) current.clearFocus();

You can use View.clearFocus().
Use View.requestFocus() called from onResume().

android:descendantFocusability="beforeDescendants"
using the following in the activity with some layout options below seemed to work as desired.
getWindow().getDecorView().findViewById(android.R.id.content).clearFocus();
in connection with the following parameters on the root view.
<?xml
android:focusable="true"
android:focusableInTouchMode="true"
android:descendantFocusability="beforeDescendants" />
https://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/ViewGroup#attr_android:descendantFocusability
Answer thanks to:
https://forums.xamarin.com/discussion/1856/how-to-disable-auto-focus-on-edit-text
About windowSoftInputMode
There's yet another point of contention to be aware of. By default,
Android will automatically assign initial focus to the first EditText
or focusable control in your Activity. It naturally follows that the
InputMethod (typically the soft keyboard) will respond to the focus
event by showing itself. The windowSoftInputMode attribute in
AndroidManifest.xml, when set to stateAlwaysHidden, instructs the
keyboard to ignore this automatically-assigned initial focus.
<activity
android:name=".MyActivity"
android:windowSoftInputMode="stateAlwaysHidden"/>
great reference

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
android:id="#+id/ll_root_view"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:orientation="vertical">
LinearLayout llRootView = findViewBindId(R.id.ll_root_view);
llRootView.clearFocus();
I use this when already finished update profile info and remove all focus from EditText in my layout
====> Update: In parent layout content my EditText add line:
android:focusableInTouchMode="true"

What about just adding android:windowSoftInputMode="stateHidden" on your activity in the manifest.
Taken from a smart man commenting on this: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2059394/956975

I tried to disable and enable focusability for view and it worked for me (focus was reset):
focusedView.setFocusable(false);
focusedView.setFocusableInTouchMode(false);
focusedView.setFocusable(true);
focusedView.setFocusableInTouchMode(true);

First of all, it will 100% work........
Create onResume() method.
Inside this onResume() find the view which is focusing again and again by findViewById().
Inside this onResume() set requestFocus() to this view.
Inside this onResume() set clearFocus to this view.
Go in xml of same layout and find that top view which you want to be focused and set focusable true and focusableInTuch true.
Inside this onResume() find the above top view by findViewById
Inside this onResume() set requestFocus() to this view at the last.
And now enjoy......

android:focusableInTouchMode="true"
android:focusable="true"
android:clickable="true"
Add them to your ViewGroup that includes your EditTextView.
It works properly to my Constraint Layout. Hope this help

You could try turning off the main Activity's ability to save its state (thus making it forget what control had text and what had focus). You will need to have some other way of remembering what your EditText's have and repopulating them onResume(). Launch your sub-Activities with startActivityForResult() and create an onActivityResult() handler in your main Activity that will update the EditText's correctly. This way you can set the proper button you want focused onResume() at the same time you repopulate the EditText's by using a myButton.post(new Runnable(){ run() { myButton.requestFocus(); } });
The View.post() method is useful for setting focus initially because that runnable will be executed after the window is created and things settle down, allowing the focus mechanism to function properly by that time. Trying to set focus during onCreate/Start/Resume() usually has issues, I've found.
Please note this is pseudo-code and non-tested, but it's a possible direction you could try.

You do not need to clear focus, just add this code where you want to focus
time_statusTV.setFocusable(true);
time_statusTV.requestFocus();
InputMethodManager imm = (InputMethodManager)this.getSystemService(Service.INPUT_METHOD_SERVICE);
imm.showSoftInput( time_statusTV, 0);

Try the following (calling clearAllEditTextFocuses();)
private final boolean clearAllEditTextFocuses() {
View v = getCurrentFocus();
if(v instanceof EditText) {
final FocusedEditTextItems list = new FocusedEditTextItems();
list.addAndClearFocus((EditText) v);
//Focus von allen EditTexten entfernen
boolean repeat = true;
do {
v = getCurrentFocus();
if(v instanceof EditText) {
if(list.containsView(v))
repeat = false;
else list.addAndClearFocus((EditText) v);
} else repeat = false;
} while(repeat);
final boolean result = !(v instanceof EditText);
//Focus wieder setzen
list.reset();
return result;
} else return false;
}
private final static class FocusedEditTextItem {
private final boolean focusable;
private final boolean focusableInTouchMode;
#NonNull
private final EditText editText;
private FocusedEditTextItem(final #NonNull EditText v) {
editText = v;
focusable = v.isFocusable();
focusableInTouchMode = v.isFocusableInTouchMode();
}
private final void clearFocus() {
if(focusable)
editText.setFocusable(false);
if(focusableInTouchMode)
editText.setFocusableInTouchMode(false);
editText.clearFocus();
}
private final void reset() {
if(focusable)
editText.setFocusable(true);
if(focusableInTouchMode)
editText.setFocusableInTouchMode(true);
}
}
private final static class FocusedEditTextItems extends ArrayList<FocusedEditTextItem> {
private final void addAndClearFocus(final #NonNull EditText v) {
final FocusedEditTextItem item = new FocusedEditTextItem(v);
add(item);
item.clearFocus();
}
private final boolean containsView(final #NonNull View v) {
boolean result = false;
for(FocusedEditTextItem item: this) {
if(item.editText == v) {
result = true;
break;
}
}
return result;
}
private final void reset() {
for(FocusedEditTextItem item: this)
item.reset();
}
}

Select + copy text in a TextView?

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: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="" />

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" />

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

textview1.setTextIsSelectable(true);
This will enable user to select and copy text on long clicking or as we do usually

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.

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

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 :)

I have found it doesn't work the first time I double click, but it works there after ( at least in android 11). This told me it needed to get focus. So, in the onCreate event, I first made the text view selectable, then I requested the focus to shift to the text view. Now I'm not saying the text view can lose focus and the first attempted selection will work. Not guaranteed. What is guaranteed is once it has focus, it'll work every time until it loses focus again. Don't forget about androids animations. So allow at least a half second for the non overridable animation to play out when the keyboard is hiding.
// In onCreate
TextView1.setTextIsSelectable( true );
// Allow animations to play out.
timer = new TimerTask() {
#Override
public void run() {
runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
TextView1.requestFocus();
}
});
}
};
_timer.schedule(timer, (int)(1000));
}

Thanks a lot gilbot for your explanation. I just want to add another thing.
Selected text background color follows your app theme's colorAccent
For example check the image below
Here AppTheme is my application theme.
<item name="colorAccent">#color/cold</item>
and the colorAccent value will be the selected text background color.

Just use this simple library:
GitHub: Selectable TextView

hint and textview with right gravity and a singleline

I've opened a bug but i was wondering if anyone encountered this issue and knows a workaround.
If you define a text view with a hint inside it, give it right gravity (android:gravity="right") then if you define android:singleLine=true or android:maxLines="1" or android:scrollHorizonatally="true" you don't see the hint. removing the right gravity returns the hint to the left side, removing all the tree params i mentioned above puts the hint on the right side. i want my hint on the right, but i need a single horizontal line...
here's the sample layout that doesn't show the hint:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:padding="5dp">
<EditText android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_gravity="center_vertical|right"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_margin="6dp"
android:textSize="16sp"
android:paddingRight="5dp"
android:id="#+id/c"
android:gravity="right"
android:hint="hello!!!"
android:scrollHorizontally="true"
android:maxLines="1"
android:singleLine="true"/>
</LinearLayout>
i checked on 1.6 and 2.1 emulators and it reproduces 100%, i'm prettysure it's a bug, i don't see the connection between single line and the hint.... what's more the hint got it's own layout in the TextView (mLayout and mHintLayout both exists, in onDraw if the text length is 0 mHintLayout if mHint is not null is used).

Did you try android:ellipsize="start"? This has worked great for me in the past when I've wanted my hint and EditText to be centered.

Looks like you're exactly right with the issue; I tried playing with your example layout and saw the same issue. I assume this is your bug report.
The easiest solution is to just change your layout, but that's probably not what you want to do. My first attempt at a work around would be to try not setting any of those three attributes in XML and then setting them in Java. If that doesn't work...
One option is to mimic the hint by either extending the EditText class and attempting to fix the code that lays out the hint yourself, or by overriding the onDraw method to create the hint, or perhaps by simply overlapping a regular TextView on top of the EditText, which you then show/hide manually. You could even have the view check if it's empty, and if so set the text to your hint text and change the color. When the view gains focus, check if its text is equal to your hint and, if so, remove the text and change the color back.
Another possible workaround that's a bit more "hacky" is to leave off the three attributes that cause problems, but try to manually prevent a newline from being created. You'd need to create an OnKeyListener for your EditText, something like this:
editText.setOnKeyListener(new OnKeyListener() {
#Override
public boolean onKey(View v, int keyCode, KeyEvent event) {
if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_ENTER && event.getAction() == KeyEvent.ACTION_DOWN) {
// do nothing
return true;
}
return false;
}
});
You would also want to call editText.setImeOptions(EditorInfo.IME_ACTION_NEXT) to avoid showing the return key. It still may be possible to create a newline in your text field by pasting into it or perhaps some other method, so you would also want to parse and remove newlines when the form is submitted just to be safe. This is also not likely to do what you want as far as horizontal scrolling.

use these properties with hint and single line...u can chnge gravity!!
android:gravity="right"
android:ellipsize="start"
android:imeOptions="actionNext"
android:singleLine="true"

Noting worked good enough for me. When I set Gravity.right, the cursor was always on the right and couldn't be placed in the middle of the word.
I tried a different approach - put the set the gravity the the right when there is no text (or left, if it works for you) and let android decide the best direction once the user entered something
This worked for me:
create TextWatcher class
private static class FilterTextWatcher implements TextWatcher {
private WeakReference<Activity> mActivity;
public FilterTextWatcher(Activity activity) {
mActivity = new WeakReference<Activity>(activity);
}
public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {
}
public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int count, int after) {
}
public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {
if (mActivity.get() == null)
return;
EditText searchTxtBx = mActivity.get().mSearchTxtBx;
if (searchTxtBx.getText().toString().length() == 0)
searchTxtBx.setGravity(Gravity.RIGHT);
else
searchTxtBx.setGravity(0);
}
}
use it as class member
private TextWatcher mFilterTextWatcher = new FilterTextWatcher(this);
in onCreate():
mSearchTxtBx.addTextChangedListener(mFilterTextWatcher);
in onDestroy():
mSearchTxtBx.removeTextChangedListener(mFilterTextWatcher);
mFilterTextWatcher = null;

What do you think about my solution to this problem?
editText.setOnFocusChangeListener(new OnFocusChangeListener() {
#Override
public void onFocusChange(View v, boolean hasFocus) {
if (hasFocus == false && StringUtils.isNotBlank(editText.getText().toString())) {
editText.setGravity(Gravity.RIGHT);
}
}
});
And the corresponding XML File:
<EditText android:id="#+id/the_text" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:inputType="number" android:hint="#string/edit_text_prompt"/>
Works fine for me: just one line, no enter-key possible, shows me the hint and when I leave the field after some input was given, the text appears right-aligned.

it worked with me when I added:
android:hint="the hint text ..."
android:singleLine="true"
android:ellipsize="start"
and in my activity i added :
myedittext.setOnKeyListener(new OnKeyListener() {
#Override
public boolean onKey(View v, int keyCode, KeyEvent event) {
if(keyCode==KeyEvent.KEYCODE_ENTER&&event.getAction()==KeyEvent.ACTION_DOWN){
// do nothing
return true;
}
return false;
}
});

I noticed this issue when my TextView atrs are:
android:singleLine="true"
android:gravity="right"
When I try to Linkify the textview or setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance()) on that textview, the text is just gone.
android:ellipsize="start"
solved my issue, because I use Arabic text in my app.

ListView item LongClick state for selector

On the default ListViews if you long press on an item the background fades from dark blue to light blue(on Galaxy Tab. Its orange to light orange on some other devices) during the time it takes to register a LongClick. I am assuming this is done somehow with a selector but thus far I've only seen how to use selectors for state:selected, state:focused, and state:pressed.
This page doesn't seem to show anything about a LongClick state so perhaps my assumption that this is accomplished with a selector is incorrect?
Can anyone fill me in on how the default ListView gets this effect and how I can apply it to other views?

So it turned out to be a little bit more difficult than I had thought but I have it working almost correctly now.
Here is the OnTouchListener I ended up using:
listOnTouchListener = new OnTouchListener() {
public boolean onTouch(View v, MotionEvent me){
if (me.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN){
//This means a finger has come down on top of our view
//We are going to start the animation now.
Log.i(myTag, "Action Down");
Context mContext = getApplicationContext();
Resources res = mContext.getResources();
TransitionDrawable transition = (TransitionDrawable) res.getDrawable(R.drawable.listtransition);
v.setBackgroundDrawable(transition);
//LongClick took approx. 510-530 milliseconds to register after OnTouch. So I set the duration at 500 millis.
transition.startTransition(500);
}else if (me.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_UP){
//This means we didn't hold long enough to get a LongClick
//Set the background back to the normal one.
v.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.bubblelight);
}else if (me.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_MOVE){
//Do Nothing
}else if (me.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_CANCEL){
Log.i(myTag, "Action Cancel");
//This means we are scrolling on the list, not trying to longpress
//So set the background back to the normal one.
v.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.bubblelight);
}
return false;
}
};
I also used an OnLongClickListener inside this I set the background back to the normal one.
Here is the Transition XML:
<transition xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<item android:drawable="#drawable/bubblelight1" />
<item android:drawable="#drawable/bubbledark" />
</transition>
You may be asking whats with the bubblelight1? More on that in a moment.
Here is the getView() Method I use inside my adapter to return the views that get displayed in the List:
#Override
public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
v = convertView;
if (v == null) {
LayoutInflater vi = (LayoutInflater)getSystemService(Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
v = vi.inflate(R.layout.row, null);
}
Status s = items.get(position);
if (s != null) {
v.setOnTouchListener(listOnTouchListener);
v.setOnLongClickListener(listOnLongClickListener);
tweetTxt = (TextView) v.findViewById(R.id.tweetTxt);
timeTxt = (TextView) v.findViewById(R.id.timeTxt);
if (tweetTxt != null) {
tweetTxt.setText(s.getText());
tweetTxt.setOnTouchListener(gestureListener);
}
if(timeTxt != null){
timeTxt.setText(getTimeFromNow(s.getCreatedAt().getTime()));
//timeTxt.setText(s.getCreatedAt().toLocaleString());
}
}
LinkifyWithTwitter.addLinks(tweetTxt, Linkify.ALL);
return v;
}
v.setOnTouchListener(listOnTouchListener); and
v.setOnLongClickListener(listOnLongClickListener); are the lines that set up the view with the Listeners that I've shown above.
Now about the bubblelight1. bubblelight and bubbledark are the nine patch images I am using when I tried this the first time whenever the transition started instead of the background transitioning from bubblelight to bubbledark, bubblelight would grow bigger and bubbledark would appear inside of bubblelight. So I had a big bubble that was light, a smaller bubble that was dark, then the text inside that. To fix this issue I made a copy of bubblelight and made the bottom and right edges of the ninepatch completely filled in. I just had to do the first image in the transition though, not the second. If I did the second image that way then my text would jump out of the bubble and some it would get shown over the top and along the sides of the bubble. I am not entirely sure why this was happening, or why this fix happened to work. But It does the job for now.

http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/menus.html#context-menu
When the user performs a long-press on an item in a ListView and the list is registered to provide a context menu, the list item signals to the user that a context menu is available by animating its background color—it transitions from orange to white before opening the context menu. (The Contacts application demonstrates this feature.)
So its an animation that is used. I believe it uses the View's own default On...() methods to display it. You may need to worry about giving it clickable="true" or longClickable="true" attributes.

In addition to your OnTouchListener, you can use a Runnable to revert back the background to it's original state so that you don't need to explicitly do it in the OnLongClick handler.
Handler myHandler = new Handler();
...
transition.startTransition(ViewConfiguration.getLongPressTimeout());
ResetBG r = new ResetBG(transition);
myHandler.postDelayed(r, ViewConfiguration.getLongPressTimeout());
where ResetBG is:
class ResetBG implements Runnable {
protected TransitionDrawable myTran;
public Runnable(TransitionDrawable tran) {
myTran = tran;
}
public void run() {
myTran.resetTransition();
}
}