Android - TextView with different background colors

Question

Is it possible to have a TextView with different background colors. Eg. If the text is "This is a test", is it possible to set different background color for the four words?

Answer 1

Yes.

SpannableString spannableString = new SpannableString(getString(R.string.hello_world));
Object greenSpan = new BackgroundColorSpan(Color.GREEN);
Object redSpan = new BackgroundColorSpan(Color.RED);
spannableString.setSpan(greenSpan, 0, 6, 0);
spannableString.setSpan(redSpan, 6, spannableString.length(), 0);

TextView textView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.text);
textView.setText(spannableString);

Produces:

EDIT: There are a lot of different spannable types, you can do much nicer looking things than my basic example. Check out this article.