How to allow the user to select a text range in a TextView (Similar to EditText)

Question

I've got a TextView that I would like to allow the user to select a range of text from within it. The TextView takes up the entire width and height of the device (minus some padding and a title at the top). In an EditText if you long-click you get a selection overlay that allows you to set your selection left and right bounds. I'd like this functionality in a TextView. I've read that in API level 9 (2.3) (http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.3.html) there are new text selection controls, but I'm having difficulty implementing this. I'm doing this right now:

eic = new InputConnection( bookTextView );
eic.beginBatchEdit();

But it doesn't do anything noticable. Does anyone know how to use InputConnection correctly? Thanks.

Edit: I don't necessarily need to use what I was attempting above. I ultimately want to use either a TextView or an EditText which looks and feels like a TextView and be able to select text using a dragging cursor. Then I would like to manipulate the selected text with various context menu options (or a menu that pops up above the selected text).

Answer 1

Here is an idea.. Add an EditText with a TextView background, Here is an example

<EditText 
android:text=" This is not an editable EditText" 
android:id="@+id/EditText01" 
android:layout_width="wrap_content" 
android:textColor = "@android:color/white"
android:editable = "false"
android:cursorVisible="false"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background = "@android:drawable/dark_header">
</EditText>

add this to your xml in the place of TextView