Use a custom contextual action bar for WebView text selection

THERE IS AN EASIER WAY! See update below 😀

---

For the sake of completeness, here is how I fixed the problem:

I followed the suggestion according to this answer, with a little more tweaking to more closely match the overridden code:

public class MyWebView extends WebView {

    private ActionMode mActionMode;
    private mActionMode.Callback mActionModeCallback;

    @Override
    public ActionMode startActionMode(Callback callback) {
        ViewParent parent = getParent();
        if (parent == null) {
            return null;
        }
        mActionModeCallback = new CustomActionModeCallback();
        return parent.startActionModeForChild(this, mActionModeCallback);
    }
}

Essentially, this forces your customized CAB to appear instead of the Android CAB. Now you have to modify your callback so that the text highlight will go away along with the CAB:

public class MyWebView extends WebView {
    ...
    private class CustomActionModeCallback implements ActionMode.Callback {
        ...
        // Everything up to this point is the same as in the question

        // Called when the user exits the action mode
        @Override
        public void onDestroyActionMode(ActionMode mode) {
            clearFocus(); // This is the new code to remove the text highlight
             mActionMode = null;
        }
    }
}

That’s all there is to it. Be aware that as long as you are using MyWebView with the overridden startActionMode there is NO WAY to get the native CAB (the copy/paste menu, in the case of a WebView). It may be possible to implement that sort of behavior, but that is not the way this code works.

---

UPDATE: There is a much easier way to do this! The above solution works well, but here is an alternative, easier way.

This solution provides less control over the ActionMode, but it requires far less code than the above solution.

public class MyActivity extends Activity {

    private ActionMode mActionMode = null;

    @Override
    public void onActionModeStarted(ActionMode mode) {
        if (mActionMode == null) {
            mActionMode = mode;
            Menu menu = mode.getMenu();
            // Remove the default menu items (select all, copy, paste, search)
            menu.clear();

            // If you want to keep any of the defaults,
            // remove the items you don't want individually:
            // menu.removeItem(android.R.id.[id_of_item_to_remove])

            // Inflate your own menu items
            mode.getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.my_custom_menu, menu);
        }

        super.onActionModeStarted(mode);
    }

    // This method is what you should set as your item's onClick
    // <item android:onClick="onContextualMenuItemClicked" />
    public void onContextualMenuItemClicked(MenuItem item) {
        switch (item.getItemId()) {
            case R.id.example_item_1:
                // do some stuff
                break;
            case R.id.example_item_2:
                // do some different stuff
                break;
            default:
                // ...
                break;
        }

        // This will likely always be true, but check it anyway, just in case
        if (mActionMode != null) {
            mActionMode.finish();
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void onActionModeFinished(ActionMode mode) {
        mActionMode = null;
        super.onActionModeFinished(mode);
    }
}

Here is an example Menu to get you started:

<!-- my_custom_menu.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

    <item
        android:id="@+id/example_item_1"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_menu_example_1"
        android:showAsAction="always"
        android:onClick="onContextualMenuItemClicked"
        android:title="@string/example_1">
    </item>

    <item
        android:id="@+id/example_item_2"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_menu_example_2"
        android:showAsAction="ifRoom"
        android:onClick="onContextualMenuItemClicked"
        android:title="@string/example_2">
    </item>

</menu>

That’s it! You’re done! Now your custom menu will show up, you don’t have to worry about the selection, and you barely have to concern yourself with the ActionMode lifecycle.

This works nearly flawlessly with a WebView that occupies its entire parent Activity. I am not sure how well it will work if there are multiple Views within your Activity at one time. It will likely require some tweaking in that case.