A recycler view vs the linear layout inside a scroll view? - android

Am trying to create a page with a scrollable list. Features would be a normal list to remove item by clicking on it. Number of items in that list are limited and added dynamically by user. You can consider a to do list as example. Now which would be a better approach to implement it? Recycler view with data bound to its adapter? Or the normal linear layout with items added as children at run time?
My current implementation is recycler view. But,I found it lagging and animations are not performing well. So a linear layout is auto animated by specifying it xml -- by setting animate layout changes to true.
FYI data is local and syncs in background.

Never use a LinearLayout for anything longer than a single screen. The whole point of ListView and RecyclerView is to efficiently reuse views instead of needing to hold things in memory when they're not visible. Maybe you can refine or reask your question so people can help you with whatever difficulty you're having with animations, rather than avoiding the issue.

Related

Setting a background resource for many linearlayouts in scrollview causes lag

I am dynamically adding around 150 linearlayouts to a scrollview in a grid-like layout. If I set the background resource to a drawable for each of them using setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.x), the scrollview shows extremely noticeable lag and choppiness, even though the drawable is a simple colour and border.
If I remove the call to setBackgroundResource, the scrollview is smooth again.
Is this expected to happen with so many views containing backgrounds? If so, how would I go about making a grid with custom backgrounds for each cell?
You're going to want to use a list view in your scroll, and you're going to want to use a ListAdapater:
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/layout/listview.html
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/Adapter.html
Basically what's going on is you're loading a large number of images into memory, and the scroll view by default doesn't do a very good job of managing releasing and inflating these resources.
Using methods similar to the above, with some custom image management, I've managed to get thousands of views running smoothly on a scroll.
It seems like you're trying to create your own list view implementation so that you can set your own layouts for each row. I don't recommend doing this. Instead, use the default list view implementation provided by Android and instead of setting a default ArrayAdapter instance on the list view, subclass ArrayAdapter, override the getView method, and return your custom layout.
I highly recommend you check out this tutorial for a more thorough explanation:
http://www.ezzylearning.com/tutorial.aspx?tid=1763429

How android Adapter removes and recreates views?

I know how to populate a ListView or any other list types, but now I am facing an issue where I should implement a ListView in a ScrollView. So, I decided to use a LinearLayout ( myLinearLayout.addView( adapter.getView(position, null, null) ). As you can see, I am retrieving data from adapter and adding as a new view to my LinearLayout. Everything is working, but if the list is being populated with 30+ rows the application freezes. Each row contains an ImageView and this way the virtual machine can't allocate enough memory.
How I should recycle linearlayout rows?
It doesn't look like a good idea to put a listview inside a scrollview. How are your users gonna use that ? Which gesture will scroll the scrollview and which one will scroll the listview ? It's not going to be usable.
Android components are well designed, you should really consider sticking to a listview that every one knows how to use and is pretty well optimized.
If you have troubles displaying many images in a list, refer this docs from google.
Once you populate the row into a linear layout the views aren't recycled by the adapter. As you wrote its also not possible to have to scroll components one inside the other. Why do you need to show list inside scroll? Did you considered populate the list "on top" of the scroll view? For example in a different fragment?

ListView or recycle views myself?

I have an app which loads a boatload of images and displays them in a TableLayout which is inside a ScrollView. At run time I get the width of the layout parent and use that to determine how many images can go in each TableRow (all of the images are of a set size).
I'm concerned about memory issues when loading more and more images. I know ListView recycles its views but I don't know how to dynamically change number of views in each item. I am only aware of inflating XML which isn't going to change the number of views per item at run time.
So my question is what is easier - figuring out how to recycle views in my table by myself, or making a list's items change based on screen size? Just a link to a tutorial on how to do whichever is easier is good enough an answer for me.
I suggest you to use ListView with the ViewHolder approach (you can see it here: How to load the Listview "smoothly" in android).
The ListView, when scrolled, removes the views that are no more visible and gets the views that are about to become visible. This way, it's better than using a ScrollView and a TableLayout.

Difference between ScrollView and ListView

Can any one explain the difference between Scroll View and List View? When to use which one? And which one is more efficient?
ScrollView is used to put different or same child views or layouts and the all can be scrolled.
ListView is used to put same child view or layout as multiple items. All these items are also scrollable.
Simply ScrollView is for both homogeneous and heterogeneous collection. ListView is for only homogeneous collection.
They're completely different.
A ScrollView is simple a scrolling container you can use to scroll whatever you put inside it, which might be a list of items, or it might not.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/ScrollView.html
A ListView is very specifically designed to hold lists, where items typically look the same (or at least follow a pattern, e.g. section headings). ListView is also designed to connect to a data source of some sort, SQLite, array, content provider etc. ListView can scale to handle enormous numbers of list items.
http://developer.android.com/resources/tutorials/views/hello-listview.html
If you have data you need to show in a list, use a ListView. If you just need scrolling content, then a ScrollView is probbaly enough.
ListView:-
In ListView You can manage layout of items in xml easily that you want to display in list.
You are required to tell the adapter ho many item you want in your display list.
You can design for both homogenous as well as heterogenous views depending on your requirement by overrifing getItemViewType() method of Adapter.
In ListView items in list are created according to screen size. i.e How many items can appear on screen are created additional views(items) are created when list is scrolled at runtime. The views that are displayed once are cached when they move out of screen and when list is scrolled back to previous state the same views are displayed but this time view are not created rather they are fetched from cache.
ScrollView :-
Cache concept is not applicable with ScrollView.
All views are created at once when they come to screen and are not cached when they move out of screen while scrolling. They are present in memory(main) that may lead to memory leak because the number of objects created are not being destroyed by garbage collector since they are being referenced untill you are on same page.
Although you can create both homogenous as well as heterogenous views. If there are more items to be displayed in your list it would be tedious to manage the layout whether you are designing in xml or creating dynamically using Java code.
It is preferable to use scrollview if you have a single page that does not contain list of items e.g registration form, reservation form but that view is larger than the screen size then put ScrollView as parent view also keep in mind that ScrollView can have only one direct child layout/view.
ScrollView simply places its contents in a scrollable container, you can edit it's contents only by adding views to it.
ListView is a class that uses an adapter which handles creating the views for your data objects, you only need to edit the data, and the layout modifications are done automatically by the adapter.
ScrollView should be used when you have a screen (ex: a form with multiple fields) that do not fit into one screen on small devices, as such scrollview offers the user the possibility to scroll down.
ListView should be used when representing sets of data.
You can read about these at http://developer.android.com/guide/index.html
A ListView is backed by an Adapter, which contains a DataSource. This allows you to easily display data in rows.
A ScrollView allows you to put content inside of it, and if the content exceeds the size of the ScrollView, it will allow the user to scroll.
They both have their uses, but it depends on what you are trying to do.
Since an image worth a thousand words, here are perfect real life examples:
Listview is like the Kijiji app
Scrollview is like the EBay app
Also, see a scrollview like a billboard or a wall, where you can put bunch of different stuff on it.
And a listview is more like a result page: results are all of same nature, therefore they fit perfectly in a listview. Like a contacts list: they all share the same structure; phone number name address, etc....

Is it possible & efficient to put a LinearView and ExpandableListView inside a ScrollView

I'm making a GUI with two different parts. The first part (at the top) is composed of some banners, several fixed buttons. So I think using LinearLayout is the most straightforward way to implement. The second part is composed of several similar items grouped together which can be implemented by using ExpandableListView, I think.
However the problem is that the content exceeds the screen size. So I intend to put two of them into a ScrollView. I checked several sources, it seems that putting "ExpandableListView" inside a ScroolView is NOT possible, or not efficent, so I'm afraid...
Would you help to confirm if this is possible? efficient ?
If no, would you give me some recommendations for this layout design?
I'm indeed looking forward to your supports.
Sincerely.
If you have a fixed header at the top of a list, use ListView's header view feature.
Putting ListViews in ScrollViews fundamentally makes no sense and here is why:
ListView has one purpose: to efficiently display unbounded data sets. Since these can be extremely large (tens of thousands of items and more) you do not want to create a View for each item up front. Instead, ListView asks its Adapter for Views only for the items that currently fit in the ListView's measured space on screen. When an item's View is scrolled out of sight, ListView disconnects that View and hands it back to the adapter to fill out with new data and reuse to show other items. (This is the convertView parameter to an Adapter's getView method.)
ScrollView also has one purpose: to take a single child view and give it "infinite" vertical space to fit within. The user can then scroll up and down to see the full content.
Now given this, how many item Views would a ListView create for a 100,000 item Adapter if it had infinite height available to fill? :)
By putting a ListView inside a ScrollView you defeat ListView's key purpose. The parent ScrollView will give the ListView effectively infinite height to work with, but ListView wants to have a bounded height so that it can provide a limited window into a large data set.
Well Expandable List View itself has scrollable property by placing it in scroll view is really undesirable.As the both scroll would contradict and smooth scrolling can't be obtained in that case..
If we have any data to be shown prior or later to list...
Best way is to use header and footer view to list...
I recommend you use header and footer in your case.

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