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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-24T22:06:18+00:00

I noticed that different Android applications have different methods of selecting text. If you

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I noticed that different Android applications have different methods of selecting text. If you click-hold in Browser, there is a close up of the text plus the left and right edges can be dragged to modify the selection. In the Gmail app, a large blue circle appears below the cursor which makes it easy to move around.

The default text selection widget in an EditText box is very primitive by comparison. How can it be changed?

Update: I forgot to mention that editable is false. When editable is true the text selector is fine.

p.s. What its the proper name for the on-screen text selector?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    As of Android 3.0 (API level 11), you can set the android:textIsSelectable attribute on any TextView to make its text selectable. The default UI as of this writing is similar to the behavior you referenced for the browser.

    EDIT: Also, the default Android browser uses its own system-independent text selection mechanism that resembles the default text selection handles in Gingerbread. The “blue circle” sounds like a customized interface that a handset manufacturer added.

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