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Question

I have String with ul and li in it. And I am trying to show them in HTML formatting in textview.
textView.setText(Html.fromHtml(myHtmlText));
But textview shows the plain text. How can I have the ul and li tags formatted in textview?

KIndly check this post: [Stack Overflow Post][1] [1]: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2116162/how-to-display-html-in-textview — Aqif Hamid, Jun 26 '12 at 18:47
possible duplicate of [Html List tag not working in android textview. what can i do?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3150400/html-list-tag-not-working-in-android-textview-what-can-i-do) — kabuko, Jun 26 '12 at 18:55

score 52 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 29 '16 at 16:05

52

You can use Html.TagHandler.

In your case it will be like this:

public class UlTagHandler implements Html.TagHandler{
    @Override
    public void handleTag(boolean opening, String tag, Editable output,
                          XMLReader xmlReader) {
            if(tag.equals("ul") && !opening) output.append("\n");
            if(tag.equals("li") && opening) output.append("\n\t•");
    }
}

and

textView.setText(Html.fromHtml(myHtmlText, null, new UlTagHandler()));

answered Apr 29 '16 at 16:05

Pavel

642
7
13

Great answer. Thank you!! – Ajji Jun 09 '17 at 10:14
1

nice one! just the indenting issue on bullets with multiple lines of text – Mike Axle Jun 23 '17 at 09:30
3

Newer versions of Android seem to support this tag. Important point, according to the documentation of UITagHandler : "Is notified when HTML tags are encountered that the parser does not know how to interpret.". It only be called when the tag cannot be interpreted. – juanmeanwhile Feb 06 '18 at 09:35
Good answer! Work for API 26 – Black_Zerg Mar 08 '18 at 12:13
@MikeAxle can remove \t – Rohan Oct 02 '19 at 15:56
it adds extra line in this situation
- . /p tag is the first closing tag in my html
– Rohan Oct 02 '19 at 16:14

score 13 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 26 '12 at 18:57

Tags Supported in String Resources

Tags in static string resources are parsed by android.content.res.StringBlock, which is a hidden class. I've looked through the class and determined which tags are supported:

<a> (supports attributes "href")
<annotation>
<b>
<big>
<font> (supports attributes "height", "size", "fgcolor" and "bicolor", as integers)
<i>
<li>
<marquee>
<small>
<strike>
<sub>
<sup>
<tt>
<u>

Tags Supported by Html.fromHtml()

For some reason, Html.fromHtml() handles a different set of of tags than static text supports. Here's a list of the tags (gleaned from Html.java's source code):

<a> (supports attribute "href")
<b>
<big>
<blockquote>
<br>
<cite>
<dfn>
<div>
<em>
<font> (supports attributes "color" and "face")
<i>
<img> (supports attribute "src". Note: you have to include an ImageGetter to handle retrieving a Drawable for this tag)
<p>
<small>
<strong>
<sub>
<sup>
<tt>
<u>

see this link for more details

how come "li" tag is supported and yet the container isn't? – android developer Feb 14 '14 at 16:09 — android developer, Feb 14 '14 at 16:09

score 6 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:54

6

see HTML Tags Supported By TextView both ul and li tags are not Supported by android.text.Html class.

SOLUTION : you can display these tags using WebView or by TagHandler

for more help see this post:

Html List tag not working in android textview. what can i do?

edited May 23 '17 at 11:54

Community

1
1

answered Jun 26 '12 at 18:48

ρяσѕρєя K

132,198
53
198
213

see this post http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3150400/html-list-tag-not-working-in-android-textview-what-can-i-do maybe helpful – ρяσѕρєя K Jun 26 '12 at 18:53
@aman.nepid : you can handle these tags by using TagHandler or webview – ρяσѕρєя K Jun 26 '12 at 18:59

score 4 · Answer 4 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:26

4

According to the answer below, you can not use every HTML tag here;

https://stackoverflow.com/a/3150456/2275962

But, sure, there ise a way of showing bullets in Android TextView. You can replace <li> tags with  (which is HTML code for bullet).

If you want to try other list icons, use the preferred one from the table is this link;

http://www.ascii-code.com/

edited May 23 '17 at 12:26

Community

1
1

answered Dec 27 '14 at 12:07

Taner

4,511
3
18
14

4

**** doesnt work for me. I have to use **•** – David Corral Aug 20 '16 at 08:46

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 14 '19 at 21:47

A really easy way to make things work for API level M (23) and lower From your HTML string you can use the following:

private fun String.formattedHtml(): String {
    // Work around for API Versions lower than N, Html.fromHtml does not render list items correctly
    return if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT < Build.VERSION_CODES.N) {
        this.replace("<ul>", "")
            .replace("</ul>", "")
            .replace("<li>", "<p>• ")
            .replace("</li>", "</p>")
    } else {
        this
    }
}

Then, you can use:

Html.fromHtml("<ul><li> test </li></ul>".formattedHtml())

No need for TagHandler for API N and up, as mentioned in https://stackoverflow.com/a/40524835, android.text.Html supports li and ul tags.

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 11 '14 at 13:28

Im my case my data is coming down from an API call. I still needed the output to match the format of my app so I wrap the HTML string in formatting tags to display in my WebView:

public static String formatHtmlString(String stringIn) {

    String format = "<html>"
            + "  <head>"
            + "    <style type='text/css'>"
            + "      body { "
            + "           font-family: \"HelveticaNeue-Light\", \"Helvetica Neue Light\"; "
            + "           font-size:14px;" + "           color:#000;"
            + "      }" + "      b { " + "           font-size:14px;"
            + "       }" + "      i { " + "           font-size:10px;"
            + "           color:#333333;" + "           opacity:0.75;"
            + "       }" + "    </style>" + "  </head>" + "  <body>"
            + stringIn + "</body>" + "</html>";

    return format;
}

mochadwi · Answer 7 · 2019-12-20T17:12:56.240

In my case, I'm getting a list of String (from backend as a JSON Response), then render the HTML manually using this approach for TextView only:

In Kotlin

// ViewUtils.kt
@file:JvmName("ViewUtils")

package com.company

private fun List<String>.joinToBulletList(): String =
        joinToString(prefix = "<ul>", postfix = "</ul>", separator = "\n") {
            "<li> $it</li>"
        }

fun TextView.renderToHtmlWithBulletList(contents: List<String>) {
    val content = contents.joinToBulletList()

    val html: Spannable = if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.N) {
        Html.fromHtml(content, Html.FROM_HTML_MODE_COMPACT, null, null) as Spannable
    } else {
        Html.fromHtml(content, null, null) as Spannable
    }

    text = html
}

// AnyActivity.kt
val contents = listOf("desc 1", "desc 2", "desc 3")
textViewFromXml.renderToHtmlWithBulletList(contents)

In Java

// AnyActivity.java
List<String> contents = new String["desc 1", "desc 2", "desc 3"];
ViewUtils.renderToHtmlWithBulletList(textViewFromXml, contents)

Notice the @file:JvmName("ViewUtils") it is useful to change the file name so Java code can call it ViewUtils.java instead of ViewUtilsKt.java. See here for more detail

P.S: Please feel free to edit this

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