Question

I want to change the text inside a button to be bold when the button is highlighted or pressed. I currently use a xml file to define the button and use the XML to change how it looks when pressed but I would like to do this without using an image.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:state_focused="true"
          android:state_pressed="false" 
          android:drawable="@drawable/reset_hover" />
    <item android:state_focused="true" 
          android:state_pressed="true"
          android:drawable="@drawable/reset_hover" />
    <item android:state_focused="false" 
          android:state_pressed="true"
      android:drawable="@drawable/reset_hover" />
    <item android:drawable="@drawable/reset" />
</selector>

I tried using something like the following, but it doesn’t seem to ever get called.

    final Button btn_reset = (Button) findViewById(R.id.btn_reset);
    btn_reset.setOnClickListener(this); 
    btn_reset.setOn(new OnFocusChangeListener() {
    @Override
    public void onFocusChange(View v, boolean hasFocus) {
        if (hasFocus){btn_reset.setTypeface(null, Typeface.BOLD);}
        else{btn_reset.setTypeface(null, Typeface.NORMAL);}
    }
   });

Answer 1

Attention! See update below

---

You could create your own style.xml in which you define the text style. In your selector you can reference to the style.
style.xml

<style name="myStyle">  
    <item name="android:textSize">9px</item>
    <item name="android:gravity">center_horizontal</item>
    <item name="android:textColor">#fff</item>
    <item name="android:textStyle">bold</item>
</style>

And in your selector

<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<item android:state_focused="true"
      android:state_pressed="false" 
      style="@style/myStyle" /> </selector>

Update 2020: My answer is more than 10 years old. It doesn´t work anymore!