Question

I know I can put escaped HTML tags in string resources. However, looking at the source code for the Contacts application I can see that they have a way of not having to encode the HTML. Quote from the Contacts application strings.xml:

<string name="contactsSyncPlug"><font fgcolor="#ffffffff">Sync your Google contacts!</font> 
\nAfter syncing to your phone, your contacts will be available to you wherever you go.</string>

Unfortunately, when I try something similar (like Hello, <b>World</b>!), getString() returns the string without the tags (I can see that in logcat). Why is that? How can I get the original string, with tags and everything? How is the Contacts application doing it?

Answer 1

It seems getString() does just that — gets a string. To use this, you have to use getText() (and no more Html.fromHtml()), i.e.:

mTextView.setText(getText(R.string.my_styled_text));

However, it seems the android:text property does just the same thing, and the following is equivalent:

<TextView android:text="@string/my_styled_text" />

And in strings.xml:

<string name="my_styled_text">Hello, <b>World</b>!</string>