CodeBlock in TextView

Question

I am currently developing an Android app and I would like to incorporate a feature that allows users to input code snippets in a similar fashion to how it's done on Stack Overflow. Specifically, I would like to enable users to separate code from other text by enclosing it within three backticks,

//ability to separate text from code in string start and ends with three backticks and displaying that in separated box as this text is displayed 

and have it displayed in a separate box to make it more visually distinct. This is a widely used feature on many platforms, and I believe it would enhance the user experience of my app. Despite searching online, I have not been able to find any resources on how to implement this feature. Can you provide guidance on how to achieve this functionality?

Answer 1

Well, you would need a special character to mark the begging and the end of a code snippet, just like ``` is on Stack Overflow. So I would use indexOf() and lastIndexOf() to find position of the characters that mark the begging and the end, and then I would simply change the font, font color and the background color of that part of the string using SpannableString.

You can read more about SpannableString here