Develop Reference

populate listview with multiple datasources

Is it possible to populate a the same listview with 4 different sources?
at the moment my design is a
textview
listview
textview
listview
what i dont like is the two listview scroll indepently so if the top one is almost empty i have alot of empty space on my screen,
if I dont set the top one to a fixed size and it is very full, the bottom one is not shown.
I would like to have one listview/scrollview so everything is arranged nicely indepent on how many entries are in either of the arrays i use to populate my listviews.
can that be done?
thanks
this is my xml as mention above
<TextView
android:id="#+id/gamesView"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_below="#id/top_btns"
android:gravity="center"
android:text="#string/gamesView"
android:textColor="#FFFFFF"/>
<ListView
android:id="#+id/gameslist"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="260dip"
android:layout_below="#id/gamesView" />
<TextView
android:id="#+id/finishedGamesView"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_below="#id/gameslist"
android:gravity="center"
android:text="#string/endedGamesView"
android:textColor="#FFFFFF"/>
<ListView
android:id="#+id/finishedgameslist"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_below="#id/finishedGamesView" />

Android: I have a fixed header for a listview but the "glow effect" is only for the listview

I'm trying to make a layout similar to the people app, so I have a list with a fixed header at the top. I define the header on top of the listview inside a relative layout but the "glow effect" at the top of the list is only for the listview and not the whole layout.
This is what I have:
and this is what I want:
This is my layout file:
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" >
<LinearLayout
android:id="#+id/header_layout"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:clickable="true"
android:minHeight="20dp"
android:orientation="vertical" >
<TextView
android:id="#+id/status_header"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:text="#string/last_updated"
android:textSize="12sp"
android:textStyle="bold"
android:textAllCaps="true"
android:gravity="center|left"
android:layout_marginLeft="20dp"
android:layout_marginTop="7dp"
android:layout_marginBottom="7dp"
android:textColor="#color/nice_blue"
/>
<View style="#style/HeaderDivider"/>
</LinearLayout>
<ListView
android:id="#+id/status_list"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:headerDividersEnabled="false"
android:footerDividersEnabled="false"
android:layout_below="#+id/header_layout" >
</ListView>

The glow effect in both examples are functioning the same.
What is happening within the People application is that it is also a ListView just like yours. The effect happens in the same place. The Me, #, A, etc headers are actually inside the ListView.
Option 1
To do what you are looking to do, put a header in the ListView, you'll also need to create a custom ListView. This means extending ListView.
It sounds more challenging than it is, but you should be able to find a number of examples online. Look for examples that extend a ListView rather than creating a custom ListView.
The general idea is that you'll add in a TextView into the the View of the ListView that will act as your header. This will put the header text Last updated at inside of the ListView view that you've created and since it is inside, it will be included underneath the glow.
Option 2
You may be able to use the addHeaderView(View v, Object data, boolean isSelectable) or addHeaderView(View v) methods on the ListView itself.
I believe this will add a header row inside the ListView, but I've never used this so I can't say for sure how it works. This may be easier, but will be less flexible.

Android: Nested List Views and item heights

I am currently trying to create a nested ListView.
An outer ListView contains items, of which each consists of a TextView, as caption, and another ListView with children.
Filling the ListViews works really nice using another nested ListView adapter, yet, when it comes to actually displaying the content on the device, the nested list items are not high enough to display all the children. To be exact, only the first nested list item is displayed.
My current layout approach is the following:
Outer list item:
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:padding="5px"
>
<TextView android:id="#+id/day"
android:textSize="14sp"
android:textStyle="bold"
android:textColor="#ff5e00"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:scrollHorizontally="false"/>
<ListView android:id="#+id/innerList"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:fadingEdge="none"
/>
</LinearLayout>
and an inner list layout:
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:padding="5px"
>
<TextView android:id="#+id/innertextview"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:scrollHorizontally="false"
android:singleLine="false"/>
</LinearLayout>
Is there any chance to adapt the size of the outer list item in a way that all the inner list items will be displayed?
I also looked at ExpandableListViews. This approach worked, yet, I do not want to have the list items collapsed.
Thank you very much,
Matthias

I did not really like this solution, so I looked into this issue some more and found another solution:
ExpandableListView inherits from ListView. What it does is overriding the getView method from BaseAdapter and make a distinction between child and parent items. It is not a real nested list, but it flattens the list by using different layout items.
The same can be done for creating a NestedListView. Inherit from ListView and expect a self created adapter, which makes a distinction between child and parent layout items.
For each one return the appropriately filled layout items.
Done.

You should be able to make the items in an ExpandableListView uncollaposable. This is probably you best option. For instructions on how disable collapsing, checkout this SO Post.

Android layout - listview and edittext below

I'm trying to mimic the behaviour of the HTC SMS application (tradional view), where all messages are shown, and an EditTextis shown below. As you can see in the screenshot, when scrolling upwards, the EditText scrolls away at the bottom.
I'm stuck with this, even after reading multiple posts (eg Android Layout with ListView and Buttons and this website: http://www.finalconcept.com.au/article/view/android-keeping-buttons-visible), it's not working as expected.
Thanks to the comments and EditText now showing under ListView, I've managed to have my ListView take all available space and start scrolling once completed. The EditText is showing at the bottom of the screen now - always. I'd like it to disappear at the bottom when I scroll up though - now it remains at the bottom
Current Code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent">
<ListView
android:id="#android:id/android:list"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="0dp"
android:layout_weight="1"
/>
<TableLayout
android:layout_weight="0"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content">
<TableRow>
<EditText android:id="#+id/newmessagecontent"
android:layout_height="150dp"
android:singleLine="false"
android:gravity="top"
android:layout_width="250dp"
android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
/>
<Button android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:id="#+id/sendmessage"
android:text="Send"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
/>
</TableRow>
</TableLayout>
</LinearLayout>

i think what you need to implement here is some sort of modification of the SeparatedListAdapter from Jeff Sharkey from this Article. In this article he not only manages to add two Adapters to a ListView but also explains how to have Headers to separate them if you want (you can remove that part of the code).
So what i mean, is your first Adapter will be the data with It's rows, and the second Adapter will be a dummy one with no data that just points to a View with your controls or whatever.
this way the ListView and what you want to add at the bottom are gonna be all scrollable.
Hope this helps.

A ListView automatically scrolls if all the items in it take up more space than the view provides. What happens if you remove the ScrollView?

Why does Android listview sometimes disappear after calling requery on underlying cursor?

I have a fairly simple application that uses a ListActivity to display a ListView. Each ListView item has a CheckBox so that the user can specify favorite items. I am using a class that extends SimpleCursorAdapter so that I can capture both the CheckBox changed event (to save the change to the database) and the list item clicked event (to load an item details activity).
After the OnCheckChangedListener implementation updates the database, I call .requery() on the cursor so that when an item scrolls off and then back on to the screen, the CheckBox has the proper state.
That all works fine. Where I am having problems is in another activity where I am reusing the same ListView layout and the same cursor adapter to display a specific subset of items as part of a different activity's layout. When I use the layout there, everything is fine until I tap the CheckBox, at which point the entire ListView disappears. The database is updated, but until I leave the activity and come back, the ListView is just totally gone.
If I don't call .requery() on the cursor, everything works fine; the ListView does not disappear (but the CheckBox state will be wrong some of the time, as described above).
Working layout, event_list.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout android:id="#+id/RelativeLayout01"
android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent"
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<TextView android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:text="#+id/eventsHeader"
android:id="#+id/eventsHeader" android:gravity="center_vertical"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:textSize="15sp" />
<ListView android:id="#+id/android:list" android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:layout_below="#+id/showHistoricalEvents" />
<CheckBox android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:id="#+id/showHistoricalEvents"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true" android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:text="Show Past Events" android:textSize="14sp" />
<TextView android:id="#+id/android:empty" android:text="#string/no_events"
android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_below="#+id/showHistoricalEvents" />
</RelativeLayout>
Broken layout, track_details.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_width="fill_parent">
<TextView android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:id="#+id/InterestLabel"
android:layout_alignParentLeft="true" android:text="#string/interest_level"
android:gravity="center_vertical" android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:layout_above="#+id/track_name" />
<Spinner android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:id="#+id/InterestSpinner"
android:entries="#array/priority" android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:layout_toLeftOf="#+id/FavoriteCheckbox" android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_toRightOf="#+id/InterestLabel" />
<CheckBox android:layout_width="wrap_content" style="?android:attr/starStyle"
android:id="#+id/FavoriteCheckbox" android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
android:layout_alignParentRight="true" android:gravity="center_vertical"
android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:layout_above="#+id/track_name" />
<TextView android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:id="#+id/track_name"
android:text="#+id/track_name" android:textSize="25sp"
android:layout_below="#+id/InterestSpinner" />
<LinearLayout android:id="#+id/LinearLayout01"
android:layout_below="#+id/track_name" android:orientation="vertical"
android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:layout_width="fill_parent">
<TextView android:text="#+id/track_description" android:id="#+id/track_description"
android:scrollbars="vertical" android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="0dip" android:layout_weight="1"
android:paddingLeft="5dp" android:paddingTop="5dp" />
<include layout="#layout/event_list" android:id="#+id/trackEventList"
android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="0dip"
android:layout_weight="2.5" />
</LinearLayout>
</RelativeLayout>
My only thought right now is that the way I am using layout_weight in the second layout is causing some weirdness. I am loath to change that, however, since it took me quite some time to get the layout to work the way I wanted it to in the first place.
One other note, when I am including the first layout in the second, I am hiding the TextView and CheckBox controls because they are unnecessary.
Any ideas what I am doing wrong here?

Where I am having problems is in
another activity where I am reusing
the same ListView layout and the same
cursor adapter to display a specific
subset of items as part of a different
activity's layout.
If you mean the same instance of SimpleCursorAdapter, that is so not a good idea. Please make a new adapter.
When I use the layout there,
everything is fine until I tap the
CheckBox, at which point the entire
ListView disappears. The database is
updated, but until I leave the
activity and come back, the ListView
is just totally gone.
Use hierarchyviewer to determine if the ListView has no children (rows), has no height, is invisible/gone from a visibility standpoint, or is truly removed from the view hierarchy. That will give you better ideas of how to proceed.
Any ideas what I am doing wrong here?
Besides the adapter problem mentioned above, you're using CheckBox. Android has built-in support for multiple-select lists (e.g., android:choiceMode="multiple"), but that needs a CheckedTextView. I would aim to use Android's built-in multiple-selection logic rather than rolling your own.