Which Button was pressed first?

Question

I need a way to know which of my buttons was pressed first. The app layout is more or less like this.:

Button1 Button2
Button3 Button4
Button5 Button6
Button7 Button8
Button9 Button10
Button11 Button12

And if one of the buttons of it's "line" is pressed, the other disappears. The thing is, I have no idea how to know which one of all these 12 buttons was pressed first, then pressed second, then pressed third and so on...

The code I have for hiding buttons works well, but that's pretty much the easy part.

button1.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
                    @Override
                    public void onClick(View arg0) {

                        button1.setVisibility(View.GONE);
                        button2.setVisibility(View.GONE);

                    }
                });

I searched but maybe I don't know what exactly to search for, and I didn't find a good answer.

Answer 1

You can do it like this: 1) Have a HashMap where you link both of your buttons on the same line to each other. 2) Have an ArrayList of button id's where you can hold the order of presses. 3) Implement a method which will perform the mapping and call it in your Activity's #onCreate method. 4) Set your global listener instance to all of your buttons.

private HashMap<Integer, Integer> buttonMap = new HashMap<>();
private ArrayList<Integer> buttonPressedOrder = new ArrayList<>();

// A global listener instance to be set to all of your buttons
private View.OnClickListener listener = new View.OnClickListener() {
    public void onClick(View selectedButton) {
      int selectedButtonId = selectedButton.getId();

      //Add pressed button to pressed buttons list
      buttonPressedOrder.add(selectedButton.getId());

      //Find button to hide and hide it
      int hidingButtonId = buttonMap.get(selectedButtonId);
      Button hidingButton = findViewById(hidingButtonId);
      hidingButton.setVisibility(View.GONE); 
    }
  }

//Put these inside your activity#onCreate
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    ...
    mapButtons();
    Button button1 = findViewById(R.id.button1);
    Button button2 = findViewById(R.id.button2);
    ...
    button1.setOnClickListener(listener);
    button2.setOnClickListener(listener);
}

// A method for mapping your buttons in the same line to each other
private void mapButtons(){
    buttonMap.put(R.id.button1, R.id.button2)
    buttonMap.put(R.id.button2, R.id.button1)
    buttonMap.put(R.id.button3, R.id.button4)
    buttonMap.put(R.id.button4, R.id.button3)
    ...

}

Whenever you need to see in which order the buttons are pressed, use this method

public void getButtonPressedOrder(){
    Resources res = getResources();
    int numberOfPressedButtons = buttonPressedOrder.size();
    for(int i=0; i<numberOfPressedButtons; i++){
       Log.i("PressOrder", res.getResourceEntryName(buttonPressedOrder.get(i)) 
                         + " is pressed at " + (i+1) + " order");
    }
}

which will log something like:

I/PressOrder: button1 is pressed at 1 order

I/PressOrder: button5 is pressed at 2 order

I/PressOrder: button10 is pressed at 3 order

Hope this helps!