Android: Changing TextView alpha transparency across different target SDKs

Sometimes you may need to make a TextView (label) look a little transparent to make emphasis on other parts of your UI. The .setAlpha() function on TextView is not supported after later in the SDK. Here’s a static workaround you can place on some sort of UIUtils class you may have in your project.

    /**
     * Android devices with SDK below target=11 do not support textView.setAlpha().
     * This is a work around. 
     * @param v - the text view
     * @param alpha - a value from 0 to 255. (0=transparent, 255=fully visible)
     */
    public static void setTextViewAlpha(TextView v, int alpha) {
        v.setTextColor(v.getTextColors().withAlpha(alpha));
        v.setHintTextColor(v.getHintTextColors().withAlpha(alpha));
        v.setLinkTextColor(v.getLinkTextColors().withAlpha(alpha));
        
        Drawable[] compoundDrawables = v.getCompoundDrawables();
        for (int i=0 ; i < compoundDrawables.length; i++) {
            Drawable d = compoundDrawables[i];
            if (d != null) {
                d.setAlpha(alpha);
            }
        }
        
    }

Enjoy, and above all
CODE!