Is there any way to programatically select text in a TextView?

Question

I have a TextView that I'm looking to allow the user to search in for a specific string. If the string is found, it should highlight. Using a background span is too slow and awkward, so I am trying to figure out if I can just have it select the string. I know with EditText this would be possible using setSelection(), but I don't want the user to be able to edit the text, while still being able to manually highlight text, which I can't seem to do manage with an EditText.

I guess, then it's an either or; is it either possible to programmatically select text in a TextView or possible to allow text selection without allowing editing in an EditText?

Note: I'm actually using a custom view extending TextView, so I'm assuming it's either that or extend EditText; I'm just not sure which (if either) will work.

Answer 1

Not sure whether the question is still actual, I will provide my solution. Maybe will be useful for people coming from search engines.

So the purpose, as I understood, is to select all text in TextView without being able to modify its content. I didn't check how effective it is against very large text, but hope that not so bad.

Please note, API version should be >=11

import android.annotation.TargetApi;
import android.content.Context;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.os.Build;
import android.text.Selection;
import android.text.Spannable;
import android.util.AttributeSet;

public class SelectableTextView extends TextView
{
    public SelectableTextView(Context context)
    {
        super(context);
        init();
    }

    public SelectableTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs)
    {
        super(context, attrs);
        init();
    }

    public SelectableTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyleAttr)
    {
        super(context, attrs, defStyleAttr);
        init();
    }

    @TargetApi(Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP)
    public SelectableTextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs, int defStyleAttr, int defStyleRes)
    {
        super(context, attrs, defStyleAttr, defStyleRes);
        init();
    }

    private void init()
    {
        if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT > 10)
            setTextIsSelectable(true);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onTextContextMenuItem(int id)
    {
        switch (id)
        {
            case android.R.id.cut:
                return true;

            case android.R.id.paste:
                return true;

            case android.R.id.shareText:
            {
                String selectedText = getText().toString().substring(getSelectionStart(), getSelectionEnd());

                if (selectedText != null && !selectedText.isEmpty())
                {
                    Intent sendIntent = new Intent();
                    sendIntent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_SEND);
                    sendIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TEXT, selectedText);
                    sendIntent.setType("text/plain");
                    sendIntent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK);
                    getContext().startActivity(sendIntent);
                }

                return true;
            }

            case android.R.id.selectAll:
            {
                selectAllText();
                return true;
            }
        }

        return super.onTextContextMenuItem(id);
    }

    public void selectAllText()
    {
        if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT > 10)
            Selection.setSelection((Spannable) getText(), 0, length());
    }

}