While working on a new release for my Intoxication Calculator Android Application I wanted to add a clickable attribution note for a graphic designer. She asked that I link her email and website in the application so she could add it to her portfolio. A quick search revealed I could just inject an html anchor tag into the string resource to accomplish this. The link appeared to be working but I was unable to click on it. It turns out there’s a few gotchas you need to do to accomplish this. The url won’t be clickable or won’t appear correctly if you don’t meet these requirements:

• The xml layout must include an autolink property/value.
• The body of the anchor tag must include the url

Example Implementation
Here’s an example of how I would include a clickable link to my website in an Android TextView:

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<!-- strings.xml -->
<string name="website">Please visit my website: <a href="https://rileymacdonald.ca">https://rileymacdonald.ca</a>
<string name="email">Please email me at: <a href="mailto:riley_macdonald@hotmail.com">riley_macdonald@hotmail.com</a>

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<!-- layout.xml -->
<TextView
  android:id="@+id/website_textview"
  android:layout_width="match_parent"
  android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
  android:text="@string/website"
  android:autoLink="web"/>
 
<TextView
  android:id="@+id/email_textview"
  android:layout_width="match_parent"
  android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
  android:text="@string/email"
  android:autoLink="email"/>