Android - Complex view or something else?

Question

I want to create an Activity with 2 lists. Temporarily I've created 2 listViews with different rows declared in adequate *.xml files, and divided the screen 50/50, but it doesn't look nice. That's why I want to make one scrollview with rows from first listView, separator and then rows from second listView.

Can I use what I already have (xml files defining layout of rows)?

Do I need to make new class extending View or there is other way?

I have to add that each row has about 5 controls that need to be set, so it is not very simple row.

Do you really need to scrolling views? Why dont you just add them both to the same scrollView? This is very easy to do programatically — Jameo, Jun 17 '13 at 15:41
I want it to be separated - so the first line is a label, maybe with image, then first list, then separator, another label, maybe image and then the second list. How can I add separator to the list? The third type of entry for ListView? And you mean that after insertion of many items of different types i just make an if statement in getView that gets to know whether it is the first or the other type? — karex, Jun 17 '13 at 16:04
Yes, basically. You will have 3(maybe more) types of rows. You have your first lists row, your second lists row, and then a separator (with image, or whatever). You will insert a separator, then loop through the first list. Insert second separator, loop through second list — Jameo, Jun 17 '13 at 16:25
Thanks man! That would make everything much simpler. I am reading about such solution here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3514548/creating-viewholders-for-listviews-with-different-item-layouts and want to ask you if you know what are those ViewHolders? Looks like I'll need them. — karex, Jun 17 '13 at 16:37
all a view holder is is just an object that holds your views, for easy access and organization. — Jameo, Jun 18 '13 at 18:14

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 17 '13 at 16:49

You could do what your saying, which would still use a listView. ListViews can be tricky because you have to match the number of rows with the number of items in your adapter. What I was saying is you could just use a scrollView to start. You wont see a performance increase unless your talking about several hundred rows.

Here is how to inflate a row, and add it to a scrollview programmatically

ScrollView scrollView = (ScrollView)findViewById(R.id.scrollView);
...
for(int i = 0; i < firstList.size(); i++){
   //here my row was a relative layout.  Could be LinearLayout, or anything 
   RelativeLayout row = (RelativeLayout)View.inflate(this, R.layout.list_row, null);
   tv = (TextView)row.findViewById(R.id.tv);
   tv.setText("Some text");
   ...initialize other views in row
   scrollView.addView(row);
}

then just repeat for your second list, and dont forget to insert your seperators

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 17 '13 at 17:32

You might need to learn custom adepter .

you can customize your list item's order . lets say you have 10 total item to show in on screen and you want to separate it in 5/5 .

here is basic logic according to above scenario

@Override
public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) 
    {

     if (postion<5)
    {
    //Write your code here for first five items 
    }
    else{
    //Write your code here for rest five items 
    }

}

Android - Complex view or something else?

2 Answers2