How can I make bold and underline a string dynamically in Android code?

Question

How can I make bold and italic the Branch Name:, Branch No:, Branch Phone No: and Branch Timings: in Java code? The database data should remain in simple format. These four are just headings of them. In this (current) case, it prints/displays the whole data in simple format and the user has a problem reading this data.

String branchInfoString = "" ;

// fetching all the database data in a list
List<BranchInfo> dbDataList = _dbHandler.getAllInfo() ;

// getting that data into a string that will be displayed in TextView
for(BranchInfo aBranch : dbDataList ){

branchInfoString = branchInfoString + 

          "Branch Name: " + aBranch.getBranchName() + "\n" +
          "Branch No: " + aBranch.getBranchNo() + "\n" + 
          "Branch Phone No: " + aBranch.getBranchPhone() + "\n" + 
          "Branch Timings: " + aBranch.getBranchTiming() + "\n" + 

          "\n --------------------------------------- \n \n" ;  

}

// showing all the branch data in a text_view
setContentView(R.layout.db_branch_list) ;
TextView dbDataView = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.db_branch_list) ;
dbDataView.setText(branchInfoString) ;

Answer 1

Yes, you can decorate the text in your TextView using HTML tags. That includes not just italics and bold, but also font color, and some other stuff. Something like this:

branchInfoHtmlString = branchInfoString + 

      "<b>Branch Name: " + aBranch.getBranchName() + "</b>\n" +
      "<i>Branch No: " + aBranch.getBranchNo() + "</i>\n" + 
      "<font >Branch Phone No: " + aBranch.getBranchPhone() + "</font>\n" + 
      "<font color="#FFDDDDDD">Branch Timings: " + aBranch.getBranchTiming() + "</font>\n" + 

      "\n --------------------------------------- \n \n" ;  

}

// showing all the branch data in a text_view
setContentView(R.layout.db_branch_list) ;
TextView dbDataView = (TextView)findViewById(R.id.db_branch_list) ;
dbDataView.setText(Html.fromHtml(branchInfoHtmlString)) ;

Not all HTML tags are supported, you can find the lists of tags here and here.

Answer 2

Use HTML content to format your text for example:

branchInfoString = branchInfoString + 

      "<b><i>Branch Name: </i></b>" + aBranch.getBranchName() + "\n" +
      "Branch No: " + aBranch.getBranchNo() + "\n" + 
      "Branch Phone No: " + aBranch.getBranchPhone() + "\n" + 
      "Branch Timings: " + aBranch.getBranchTiming() + "\n" + 

      "\n --------------------------------------- \n \n" ;

dbDataView.setText(Html.fromHtml(branchInfoString ));