What view should I use to store songs for a music player? A ListView or RecyclerView?

Question

Ok so i am trying to make a music app and i watched a tutorial saying that i should use a ListView but that video came out in 2015. A collegue told me that a recyclerView would be better

Instead of trying to make the coding easier, perhaps you should look at it from a User Experience perspective("which makes my app better to use") — AWinkle, Jul 20 '17 at 15:04

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 20 '17 at 15:09

If you are looking for simplicity, then I suggest ListView. It has detailed documentation (which can be found at https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/layout/listview.html). It also has easy-to-use setAdapter functions to help you enter your data.

On the other hand, RecyclerView is more complex. It is more powerful and allows you to perform more tasks (such as various layout patterns, described at https://developer.android.com/training/material/lists-cards.html), but its API is more technical than that of ListView's.

If you are just going for displaying a list of songs and possibly subtitles, then I suggest going with the more simple route - ListView.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 20 '17 at 14:52

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It is better. RecyclerView is a ListView improvement! If you want to know more you can take a look here. Basically it reuses views, delegates common animations. You can also put items in a grid/staggered/linear/whatever layout through LayoutManager.

answered Jul 20 '17 at 14:52

Samuele Pontremoli

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but does it make it easier to use ? – Christopher Ghosal Jul 20 '17 at 15:00
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Not necessarily, but I strongly encourage you to use it. Trust me, it's the correct thing to do. – Samuele Pontremoli Jul 20 '17 at 15:02
ok right i did use the recyclerview does this mean i have to use different code compared to the listview – Christopher Ghosal Jul 20 '17 at 15:04
Yes, the setup is a bit different. Follow the [official documentation](https://developer.android.com/training/material/lists-cards.html) – Samuele Pontremoli Jul 20 '17 at 15:07
This should be the accepted answer: the rule of thumb is to use always RecyclerView instead of ListView. – Diego dos Santos Jul 26 '17 at 16:26

What view should I use to store songs for a music player? A ListView or RecyclerView?

2 Answers2