Develop Reference

Listview data model updated but items not displaying

I have searched these forums for nearly 3 hours and seen several similar questions but none of the answers works for me.
I have a single Activity, with several card views. One of the card views has a Spinner with string values and a very simple ListView. The user selects a value from the Spinner, between 1 and 12. The ListView should then display a number of strings equal to the value selected, based on the position in the spinner list. For example, user selects 2nd item in spinner list and the ListView displays 2 strings. I have a custom adapter on the listview. The ListView itself initially displays a single row, which is correct. However, after the user selects a value from the spinner, the listview is not displaying the extra rows, it still only displays one row. The data for the ListView comes from an ArrayList. I have checked the data model of the adapter after the user selects a value and it has the correct number of entries, as does the ArrayList itself, yet no matter what I try the ListView itself still only display the first row. I have tried NotifyDataSetChanged and every variation of Invalidate without success.
The various code samples:
#Override
public void onItemSelected(AdapterView<?> parent, View view, int position, long id) {
if (parent == spDoseFrequency){
Toast.makeText(this,String.valueOf(position),Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
rebuildReminderTimesList(position + 1);
}
}
private void rebuildReminderTimesList(int numberOfTimes){
Toast.makeText(this,"yup",Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
//reset selected item to position 1
myApp.iSelectedReminderTimeIndex = 0;
//clear array and list, then rebuild with hourly timeslots
iarrTimes = new int[numberOfTimes][2];
liReminderTimes.clear();
int startTime = 8;
for (int i = 0; i < numberOfTimes; i++){
iarrTimes[i][0] = startTime + i;
iarrTimes[i][1] = 0;
liReminderTimes.add(pad(startTime + i) + ":00");
}
//refresh the listview
myAdapter.notifyDataSetChanged();
}
public class ReminderListAdapter extends ArrayAdapter {
List<String> liTimes;
Context ctx;
LayoutInflater inf;
public ReminderListAdapter(Context ctx, List<String> liTimes) {
super(ctx, R.layout.reminder_time_listview, liTimes);
this.liTimes = liTimes;
this.ctx = ctx;
inf = LayoutInflater.from(ctx);
}
public void setLiTimes(List<String> liTimes){
this.liTimes = liTimes;
}
#Override
public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
View view = convertView;
ViewHolder viewHolder;
if (view == null){
view = inf.inflate(R.layout.reminder_time_listview,parent,false);
viewHolder = new ViewHolder();
viewHolder.sTime = (TextView) view.findViewById(R.id.tvTime);
view.setTag(viewHolder);
} else {
viewHolder = (ViewHolder) view.getTag();
}
viewHolder.sTime.setText(liTimes.get(position));
return view;
}
private static class ViewHolder{
TextView sTime;
}
}
Any help would be appreciated as this is driving me crazy.
Quick update to this question: I have just tested supplying the initial list more than one value but even then it only displays the first item. Is there perhaps a problem with using ListView inside a CardView object? All my other cards work fine, only the ListView one fails to display properly.
Also, I have tried amending the code so that instead of changing the number of elements in the list, it just changes the text in the string of the first element and this works fine. So the notifyDataSetChanged appears to be working, but it just won't display more than one item. A quick check of the Adapter.getCount() method also gives the correct number of elements back, but won't display them.

A lot of folks forget to do the notifyDataSetChanged() call, but you've got that. Are you using a custom adapter? If so, that makes this sound like an issue with one or more of the adapter's methods. In particular, it sounds like getCount or getView might not be returning what they should be. That could either be because of a flawed logic issue, the underlying data source isn't being updated correctly, or the underlying data source isn't the same object you think it is. Without seeing your adapter though, it's hard to diagnose.

I found the problem. I had several CardView objects inside a LinearLayout, which itself was inside a ScrollView. As soon as I removed the ScrollView, the List inside the Card displayed properly. This has unfortunately created another problem in that I can no longer scroll the page to see later cards, which I have not yet found a solution for, but that is a different topic.

Change Specific TextView Color in Listview

i Have Two Database
first one Contain All The Items, and the ListView Display it
and the second db contain the the Favorite item , [selected from the first database]
what i want is that when the listview display all the items
check if the item is already exist in Favoritelist then make that textview background RED for this item
i have this code that work fine
public static void ChangeMyFavoritesBG(){
for (int i = 0; i < Items.size(); i++) {
if(db.verification(Items.get(i).toString())){
try {
TextView favtextview = (TextView) listview.getChildAt(i-listview.getFirstVisiblePosition()).findViewById(R.id.item_name);
favtextview.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.redcolor);
}catch (NullPointerException e) {
}}}}
db.verification check if item exist in favorites database
if true . then it should change the background of this item to red
this code work fine but only if i put it in button click
i need to make the code work automatically
but if i made it start automatically when the activity is loaded i get NullPointer Error
i guess because the function ChangeMyFavoritesBG(); work before the listview display items
any idea guys? and sorry for my bad english

Do this control inside the getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) method of the Adapter used by the listView.

If your favorite is not currently visible in the ListView then getChildAt() will return null.
You are looping over all items in the list view and my guess is that it holds more items than can fit on the screen. When your favorite item is one of them then this fragment of your code
listview.getChildAt(i-listview.getFirstVisiblePosition())
will return null. And that will cause the NullPointerException when you call findViewById(R.id.item_name) on it.
Just add a check for null on the result of getChildAt(). If it is null then do nothing, if it is non-null then call the second part. This will protect against the exception when your favorite item is not on the screen, and will allow it to be colored red when your favorite is visible on the screen.
update
My apologies, I read to quickly and misunderstood your problem to be about the NullPointerException but you say that your code works fine when you call it from a button click handler but not when you call it automatically at start-up.
You are right, the ListView does not yet have any items loaded when you are still in onCreate(). You can add a delay before running you code. The following works for me:
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_my);
// initialize the ListView with data for the list items. (I'm using a string array in this
// example. You are loading it from a database table, but that is the same in principle.)
ListAdapter adapter = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this, R.layout.item_list, R.id.item_name, Items);
ListView listview = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.listview);
listview.setAdapter(adapter);
// ask the system to wait before setting the background color of the favorite item so that
// the ListView has time to load the items.
final int DELAY_IN_MILLISECONDS = 100;
listview.postDelayed(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
ChangeMyFavoritesBG();
}
}, DELAY_IN_MILLISECONDS);
}
As you can see in the above example, after initializing the ListView, you ask the system to wait 100 milliseconds before calling ChangeMyFavoritesBG(). Hopefully that is enough time to load the items from the database into the ListView. If it is not enough time then you can, of course, use a longer delay.
The alternative
The above should work, but to be honest I would not write it this way. The above code is very brittle because it depends on the timing of how long it takes to load the items. I recommend that you put your background coloring into a customized adapter.
Because you want the items displayed in a customized way -- you want them to have a red background when it is the favorite one -- you should use a customized adapter. Override the bindView() function to make the background red when it is the favorite one or give it a normal background when it is not the favorite.
I don't know how you currently get the items from the database into your ListView, but inheriting from SimpleCursorAdaptor would work pretty well.
public class FavoritesItemAdapter extends SimpleCursorAdapter {
public FavoritesItemAdapter(Context context, int layout, Cursor c, String[] from, int[] to, int flags) {
super(context, layout, c, from, to, flags);
}
#Override
public void bindView(View view, Context context, Cursor cursor) {
super.bindView(view, context, cursor);
// read the name from the database
int nameColumnIndex = cursor.getColumnIndexOrThrow("name");
String name = cursor.getString(nameColumnIndex);
// write the name to the TextView
TextView nameText = (TextView) view.findViewById(R.id.item_name);
nameText.setText(name);
// set the background to normal or to red, depending on if it is the favorite one or not
boolean isFavorite = db_verification(name);
if (isFavorite) {
nameText.setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.redcolor);
} else {
nameText.setBackgroundResource(android.R.color.transparent);
}
}
public boolean db_verification(String name) {
// this is a stub. You must use your own code here
return name.equals("the favorite one");
}
}
You can then throw away ChangeMyFavoritesBG() and initialize your ListView with the adapter in onCreate() like this.
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_my);
Cursor cursor = readItemsFromDatabase();
String[] from = new String[] { "name_column" }; // mapping from database column name ...
int[] to = new int[] { R.id.item_name }; // ... to View ID in the item's layout.
FavoritesItemAdapter adapter = new FavoritesItemAdapter(this, R.layout.item_list, cursor, from, to, 0);
ListView listview = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.listview);
listview.setAdapter(adapter);
}
Good luck!

How to add e.g. 5 elements to a 10 rows listview in android?

I am previously working on PHP and js , and recently I am working on android listview
However, I encountered a problem in creating a custom adapter for listview
public View getView(int arg0, View arg1, ViewGroup arg2) {
// TODO
if (arg1 == null) {
arg1 = myInflater.inflate(R.layout.grid, arg2, false);
}
TextView name = (TextView) arg1.findViewById(R.id.text1);
TextView desc = (TextView) arg1.findViewById(R.id.text2);
ImageView image = (ImageView) arg1.findViewById(R.id.image1);
if (arg0 < images.length) {
image.setImageResource(images[arg0]);
}
name.setText(names[arg0]);
desc.setText(description[arg0]);
return arg1;
}
The problem is I have 3 array of content to pass to the listview grid, for the first two array, there are 10 element and the last one have 5 only. So , it is out of boundries for the last one. I added a condition to check whether it exceed 5 , but args0 seems not increased according to the row?
if (arg0 < images.length) {
image.setImageResource(images[arg0]);
}
The first five row and some other rows also has image setted, why is that and how to fix this? thanks

In General
since you want to display Data to your list, plx create an Object that represents Data.
like you named in your comment above:
public class ListEntry {
String name = "";
String gender = "";//use enum here perhaps -.-
String photoUrl = null; //or use byte[] photo or whatever you've stored in your array before
// write getters/setters for your members
}
then you can use one array ListEntry[] (or List<ListEntry>) to access all data. this way you get around your indexOutOfBoundsException.
lookup any listadapter tutorials online, e.g. the one from Vogella
Why do more than the first five entries have an image?
Androids Adapters for Listviews implement a caching mechanism to reduce the inflating (performance/memory cost intensive) of new list-items (e.g. rows) to a minimum. therefore there are only as many rows (or little more) created as displayed by the list. since you only set images if there are any, but never remove already set images from rows, you result in some rows that replay images they shouldn't. these rows are cached from previously outscrolling rows.
therefore add something like
if (listItem.photo != null) {
image.setImageResource(images[arg0]);
} else {
image.setVisibility(View.GONE);
}
as reference for listviews and their caching mechanism see Romain Guy on ListViews
Edit Regarding usage of Listadapter
The getView(..) you posted above is inside your ListAdapter implementation, prefarrably you've extended an ArrayAdapter<T>. if so, your T should now state ListEntry and you have any line of code that states
MyArrayAdapter myAdapter = new MyArrayAdapter() or something like that.
now you have an array or List of ListEntry like List<ListEntry> myCollection = new ArrayList<ListEntry>() or ListEntry[] listEntries = new ListEntry[10] and use
myAdapter.addAll(listEntries);
to get an item of your list inside your getView(..) you can use:
ListEntry currentEntry = getItem(arg0);
and refer the single members of currentEntry to set them ;-)

What about
if (images[arg0] != null) image.setImageResource(images[arg0]);
?

Can't get custom ListAdapter to work

I have followed various "how to" examples to the letter (or so I thought), but I still can't get my custom ListAdapter to work. I have a dialog with a list view containing strings which are references to an array of objects (of class "Notam"). I want to set the colour of each list item according to an attribute of the referenced object.
(Before you read my code, I have a quirk that the braces must line up or I can't see where the blocks are. I don't like the convention of putting an opening brace at the end of the same line.)
This is the code for the custom class (just as a test I am trying to set the text colour of each item to magenta):
private class GotoAdapter extends ArrayAdapter<String>
{
private ArrayList<String> items;
public GotoAdapter(Context context, int textViewResourceId, ArrayList<String> items)
{
super(context, textViewResourceId, items);
this.items = items;
}
#Override
public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent)
{
View v = convertView;
if (v == null)
{
LayoutInflater vi = (LayoutInflater)getSystemService(Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
v = vi.inflate(R.layout.goto_row, null);
}
String s = items.get(position);
if (s != null)
{
TextView tt = (TextView) v.findViewById(R.id.text1);
if (tt != null)
{
String s1 = (String)tt.getText(); // this is always an empty string!
tt.setTextColor(0xFF00FF); // this has no effect!
}
}
return v;
}
}
String s has the displayed text as expected (except you can't see it on the screen) when using this derived class), but the text in the returned TextView is always an empty string, and setting the colour has no effect.
This is the code that displays the dialog when a "Goto" button is clicked in my main view:
mGotoButton.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener()
{
public void onClick(View v)
{
// The pre-loaded array gets round a problem which I read about somewhere else
// (the ArrayList gets cleared again below)
String[] array = {"one", "two", "three"};
ArrayList<String> lst = new ArrayList<String>();
lst.addAll(Arrays.asList(array));
// custom dialog
final Dialog dialog = new Dialog(context);
dialog.setContentView(R.layout.goto_dialog);
dialog.setTitle("Choose Notam");
// Create the list view and adapter
final ListView list = (ListView) dialog.findViewById(R.id.goto_list);
// If I replace this reference to my custom adapter...
final GotoAdapter adapter = new GotoAdapter
(mContext, R.layout.goto_row, lst);
// ... with this normal one, everything works!
// (but of course now I can't get access to the objects.)
// final ArrayAdapter<String> adapter = new ArrayAdapter<String>
// (mContext, R.layout.goto_row, lst);
list.setAdapter(adapter);
// Populate the adapter
adapter.clear(); // first clear the silly preset strings
// Notam is my object class.
// Spine.mNotamsDisplayed is a public static NotamArray.
// class NotamArray extends ArrayList<Notam>
// Spine is my main activity where I keep my global (app-wide) stuff.
for (Notam notam : Spine.mNotamsDisplayed)
{
// This gets the reference string from the Notam object.
// This is what goes into the list.
String s = notam.getReference();
adapter.add(s);
}
// Sort into alphabetical order
adapter.sort(new Comparator<String>()
{
public int compare(String arg0, String arg1)
{
return arg0.compareTo(arg1);
}
});
list.setOnItemClickListener(new AdapterView.OnItemClickListener()
{
public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> a, View v, int pos, long id)
{
String s;
int i;
s = (String)a.getItemAtPosition(pos);
// This static function returns the index in Spine.mNotamsDisplayed
// which is referenced by the reference string s.
// I have to do this because I lost the one-for-one correlation of page
// indexes with list view entries when I did the sort.
i = NotamArray.findNotamIndexByReference(Spine.mNotamsDisplayed, s);
if (i >= 0)
{
// This is what the Goto button and dialog is all about: this
// just moves my main view's pager to the page that was selected.
mPager.setCurrentItem(i);
}
dialog.dismiss();
}
});
dialog.show();
}
});
This is my xml for the dialog (goto_dialog.xml):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent" >
<ListView
android:id="#+id/goto_list"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
</RelativeLayout>
And this is my xml for the list view row (goto_row.xml):
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<TextView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:id="#+id/text1"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:textColor="#00FF00"
android:gravity="center_vertical"
android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceMedium"
android:padding="2dp"
android:textSize="20dp"
/>
(I set the text colour to green so I could see that this bit was working if I used the standard list view adapter. (Sure enough the text of every entry was green. However no text could be seen if I used my custom adapter, although it was there - I assume black on black.)
There must be someone out there who can spot what must be a trivial error I have made - please!

From what I read, it seems like you want to set the text color of every list item to match the color you have in your array.
I want to set the colour of each list item according to an attribute of the referenced object.
However, your initial array is set as
String[] array = {"one", "two", "three"};
So this will lead to problems later when you are dynamically setting the text color based on your array. But I'm sure you meant to change that later.
When you use a standard array adapter, it just shows the items in the array as a text, that's why:
if I used the standard list view adapter. (Sure enough the text of every entry was green. However no text could be seen if I used my custom adapter
To see if your custom adapter is working (changing color), you can just start off by adding one line to your TextView of goto_row.xml file:
android:text="Test String"
Now it will show "Test String" with different colors, and the
String s1 = (String)tt.getText();
above line will get "Test String"

I found the trivial error that I hinted at at the end of my question. It was this line in the custom adapter:
tt.setTextColor(0xFF00FF);
It seems that 0xFF00FF is not a valid colour value, which is why I saw nothing on the screen.
Changing that to:
tt.setTextColor(Color.rgb(255, 0, 255);
fixes the problem, and the default green colour is changed to magenta, and I can set the text to the value I want. So I can now set the individual row colours to what they need to be.
Thanks to #LukasKnuth and #tigerpenguin for pointing me in the right direction.

Android Dialog with List that uses custom list adapter randomly losing information when scrolled

I create a dialog and populate it with a listview that uses a custom list adapter. It works fine, but I've noticed that when the list is long enough to scroll, doing so back and forth will cause some of my list items to randomly lose some of their data. I've noticed it is always the same list items too. For instance, each list item will have a title, image, and date on it. The dates seem to vanish on some when I scroll. They are always there when I start the dialog, and they always vanish once I scroll.
The weird thing is that my list row consists of a few TextViews in 2 rows and its only the bottom row TextViews that dissapear...Any ideas?
Code for my dialog
itemSendPickerDialog = new Dialog(this);
AlertDialog.Builder builder = new AlertDialog.Builder(this);
builder.setTitle("Select Item to Send");
ListView lv = new ListView(this);
Cursor c = mDbHelper.fetchItemsByDate(id);
c.moveToFirst();
int i = R.layout.send_item_menu_row;
MyListAdapter ia = new MyListAdapter(this, mainListBackground, c, true);
lv.setAdapter(ia);
builder.setView(lv);
itemSendPickerDialog = builder.create();
itemSendPickerDialog.show();
And my custom list adapter class:
class MyListAdapter extends ResourceCursorAdapter {
public MyListAdapter(Context context, int i, Cursor cursor, boolean...sending) {
super(context, i, cursor);
}
#Override
public void bindView(View view, Context context, Cursor cursor) {
TextView title = (TextView) view.findViewById(R.id.item_name);
title.setText(cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex(TripsDbAdapter.KEY_ITEM_TITLE)));
Display display = ((WindowManager) context.getSystemService(Context.WINDOW_SERVICE)).getDefaultDisplay();
int width = display.getWidth();
width = width - 150;
ViewGroup.LayoutParams params = title.getLayoutParams();
params.width = width;
title.setLayoutParams(params);
String cat = cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex(TripsDbAdapter.KEY_ITEM_CATEGORY));
if (cat.equalsIgnoreCase("trip notes")) {
LinearLayout ll = (LinearLayout) view.findViewById(R.id.item_datetime_holder);
ll.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
}
TextView date = (TextView) view.findViewById(R.id.item_date);
date.setText(cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex(TripsDbAdapter.KEY_DEP_DATE)));
TextView time = (TextView) view.findViewById(R.id.item_time);
time.setText(cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex(TripsDbAdapter.KEY_DEP_TIME)));
ImageView iv = (ImageView) view.findViewById(R.id.image_icon);
if (iv != null) {
int index = cursor.getColumnIndex(TripsDbAdapter.KEY_ITEM_TYPE);
String type = cursor.getString(index);
if (type != null) {
} else {
type = "notes";
}
iv.setImageResource(getTypeResource(type));
}
}
}

I have faced this problem too...
The problem you are facing is due to the recycling of views by the LIstView when you scroll up/down. In your case, the ListView is giving you those recycled views , whose properties you have changed by making them invisible. Some possible solutions could be:
1) When cat.equalsIgnoreCase("trip notes")) is becoming true, you are making some views invisible. This invisible view is then recycled and given back. The recycled view is still invisible (when it is given back to you), so what you can do is make this invisible view visible in the beginning of your ListAdapter every time .
You can put this code at the beginning of bindView method where you make the layout visible first and then proceed with rest of the logic.( In short, the dates from your display are not vanishing but are just invisible).
2) Override getViewTypeCount() in you adapter . From your codesnippet, it looks like you have two types of rows( one in which R.id.item_datetime_holder is invisible and other in which it is visible) , so return 2 from this method( please do some trial and error ) . This should take care of the problem.
public int getViewTypeCount() {
return 2;
}
You will find an excellent explanation at this link http://logc.at/2011/10/10/handling-listviews-with-multiple-row-types/
3) You can inflate completely different layouts depending on your if condition. But the effeciency would be a little less.

I had a similar problem, when scrolling a list, only the items after the window height decided to get their data repeating from index 0 - so if the last visible item was 8, the next would be 0 again.
So you could try to check if the index of the view is correct, maybe this method of ListView would help
lv.getPositionForView(view);

I've figured out that the code that is doing this is in my custom list adapter class
String cat = cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex(TripsDbAdapter.KEY_ITEM_CATEGORY));
if (cat.equalsIgnoreCase("trip notes")) {
LinearLayout ll = (LinearLayout) view.findViewById(R.id.item_datetime_holder);
ll.setVisibility(View.INVISIBLE);
}
I hide some of the layout items depending on what the category is, and for some reason when putting a list view in an AlertDialog builder it appears to mix up the items. I don't know exactly how I am going to fix it, but for now if I just remove the invisibility functionality, my data won't go away.

I would use two different layouts, depending on the "type" of list item. It looks like you are switching the "type" based on the cat string containing "trip notes". If it contains it, then you would have a layout that is the same as you have now, but without the item_datetime_holder view. If it doesn't contain it, then you would use the same layout as you're using now (send_item_menu_row).
Here is a good tutorial on how to use multiple layouts in a ListView: http://android.amberfog.com/?p=296
By the way, I think that the reason why some of your rows are not drawing correctly is due to view reuse by the ListView. Utilizing the multiple layouts like I've mentioned above should fix the problem since you won't be changing the visibility of views, but just utilizing two different views to render, depending on what type of list item you're rendering.