Android TextView with Clickable Links: how to capture clicks?

I have a TextView which is rendering basic HTML, containing 2+ links. I need to capture clicks on the links and open the links -- in my own internal WebView (not in the default browser.)

The most common method to handle link rendering seems to be like this:

String str_links = "<a href='http://google.com'>Google</a><br /><a href='http://facebook.com'>Facebook</a>";
text_view.setLinksClickable(true);
text_view.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
text_view.setText( Html.fromHtml( str_links ) );

However, this causes the links to open in the default internal web browser (showing the "Complete Action Using..." dialog).

I tried implementing a onClickListener, which properly gets triggered when the link is clicked, but I don't know how to determine WHICH link was clicked...

text_view.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener(){

    public void onClick(View v) {
        // what now...?
    }

});

Alternatively, I tried creating a custom LinkMovementMethod class and implementing onTouchEvent...

public boolean onTouchEvent(TextView widget, Spannable text, MotionEvent event) {
    String url = text.toString();
    // this doesn't work because the text is not necessarily a URL, or even a single link... 
    // eg, I don't know how to extract the clicked link from the greater paragraph of text
    return false;
}

Ideas?

Example solution

I came up with a solution which parses the links out of a HTML string and makes them clickable, and then lets you respond to the URL.

Based upon another answer, here's a function setTextViewHTML() which parses the links out of a HTML string and makes them clickable, and then lets you respond to the URL.

protected void makeLinkClickable(SpannableStringBuilder strBuilder, final URLSpan span)
{
    int start = strBuilder.getSpanStart(span);
    int end = strBuilder.getSpanEnd(span);
    int flags = strBuilder.getSpanFlags(span);
    ClickableSpan clickable = new ClickableSpan() {
        public void onClick(View view) {
            // Do something with span.getURL() to handle the link click...
        }
    };
    strBuilder.setSpan(clickable, start, end, flags);
    strBuilder.removeSpan(span);
}

protected void setTextViewHTML(TextView text, String html)
{
    CharSequence sequence = Html.fromHtml(html);
    SpannableStringBuilder strBuilder = new SpannableStringBuilder(sequence);
    URLSpan[] urls = strBuilder.getSpans(0, sequence.length(), URLSpan.class);   
    for(URLSpan span : urls) {
        makeLinkClickable(strBuilder, span);
    }
    text.setText(strBuilder);
    text.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());       
}

I made an easy extension function in Kotlin to catch url link clicks in a TextView by applying a new callback to URLSpan elements.

strings.xml (example link in text)

<string name="link_string">this is my link: <a href="https://www.google.com/">CLICK</a></string>

Make sure your spanned text is set to the TextView before you call "handleUrlClicks"

textView.text = getString(R.string.link_string)

This is the extension function:

/**
 * Searches for all URLSpans in current text replaces them with our own ClickableSpans
 * forwards clicks to provided function.
 */
fun TextView.handleUrlClicks(onClicked: ((String) -> Unit)? = null) {
    //create span builder and replaces current text with it
    text = SpannableStringBuilder.valueOf(text).apply {
        //search for all URL spans and replace all spans with our own clickable spans
        getSpans(0, length, URLSpan::class.java).forEach {
            //add new clickable span at the same position
            setSpan(
                object : ClickableSpan() {
                    override fun onClick(widget: View) {
                        onClicked?.invoke(it.url)
                    }
                },
                getSpanStart(it),
                getSpanEnd(it),
                Spanned.SPAN_INCLUSIVE_EXCLUSIVE
            )
            //remove old URLSpan
            removeSpan(it)
        }
    }
    //make sure movement method is set
    movementMethod = LinkMovementMethod.getInstance()
}

This is how I call it:

textView.handleUrlClicks { url ->
    Timber.d("click on found span: $url")
}

You've done as follows:

text_view.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());
text_view.setText( Html.fromHtml( str_links ) );

have you tried in reverse order as shown below?

text_view.setText( Html.fromHtml( str_links ) );
text_view.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());

and without:

text_view.setLinksClickable(true);