I'm trying to get the text the user selected in a TextView,
i wan't to use the android:textIsSelectable="true"
to allow my user copy/paste actions
However I don't have a clue as how to get the text once the action bar menu is displayed, the goal is to implement a Google book like behavior : you select a word and it gives you a definition.
I think what you're looking for is TextView.setCustomSelectionActionModeCallback
. This will allow you to create your own ActionMode.Callback
for when the text is selected. Then you can use TextView.getSelectionStart
and TextView.getSelectionEnd
to retrieve the selected text when your MenuItem
is selected. Here's a quick example:
mTextView.setCustomSelectionActionModeCallback(new Callback() {
@Override
public boolean onPrepareActionMode(ActionMode mode, Menu menu) {
// Remove the "select all" option
menu.removeItem(android.R.id.selectAll);
// Remove the "cut" option
menu.removeItem(android.R.id.cut);
// Remove the "copy all" option
menu.removeItem(android.R.id.copy);
return true;
}
@Override
public boolean onCreateActionMode(ActionMode mode, Menu menu) {
// Called when action mode is first created. The menu supplied
// will be used to generate action buttons for the action mode
// Here is an example MenuItem
menu.add(0, DEFINITION, 0, "Definition").setIcon(R.drawable.ic_action_book);
return true;
}
@Override
public void onDestroyActionMode(ActionMode mode) {
// Called when an action mode is about to be exited and
// destroyed
}
@Override
public boolean onActionItemClicked(ActionMode mode, MenuItem item) {
switch (item.getItemId()) {
case DEFINITION:
int min = 0;
int max = mTextView.getText().length();
if (mTextView.isFocused()) {
final int selStart = mTextView.getSelectionStart();
final int selEnd = mTextView.getSelectionEnd();
min = Math.max(0, Math.min(selStart, selEnd));
max = Math.max(0, Math.max(selStart, selEnd));
}
// Perform your definition lookup with the selected text
final CharSequence selectedText = mTextView.getText().subSequence(min, max);
// Finish and close the ActionMode
mode.finish();
return true;
default:
break;
}
return false;
}
});
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