Develop Reference

How to list Views (or Widgets) in one scrollable screen

I have the following prototype:
What is the way to list views in a scroll-able way in a screen?
What I have already tried:
I tried to create a class and extends the LinearLayout class and dynamically adds my Views (the compound controls class is my view also extends LinearLayout) to the main LinearLayout. So I got a list of my views which is scroll-able.

I'm not sure what you mean, but looking at what you have tried, what's wrong with using a ListView? As the name implies, it should do exactly what you want:
What is the way to list views in a scroll-able way in a screen?
Here is a quote from the android documentation of a ListView
ListView is a view group that displays a list of scrollable items. The
list items are automatically inserted to the list using an Adapter
that pulls content from a source such as an array or database query
and converts each item result into a view that's placed into the list.
You should be able to add a ListView directly as a sub-view under your LinearLayout.

your questions seems like hard to understand.
did you mean how to set the whole page(activity) into a listview?
listviews are scrollable in default (of course, you can see it if the list is long enough and you can set the whole activity as a list).. you can customize it also by using templates (xml)
and extending ArrayAdapter of your type (let's say ArrayAdapter<UpcomingEvents>) and supply data from db...
is this what you mean?

How to implement efficiently a gridview layout

This layout is a shelf with 3 books each row.
I current come up with gridview for displaying the books and manually add up the shelf bar. The problem occurs when there are more than 9 books and the layout is broken when scrolling the grid.
Could anyone suggest me another better way to deal with this layout. Thanks

I think you should set the background in each element (one shelf) instead of the setting the Grid container background (three shelf) ....
it's looking difficult in your case because it would has three images in a row ..So you need to try some this switch(position%3) in getView of adapter to set three different image
or
Use the ListView and Re-set the data in Array List so that each element has three books and you can make all three images clickable of that row and can make list row unclickable and unfocusable

android: Is it possible to put multiple layouts in listview items

hi I want to use a listview (probably) is it possible to fill each entry with say two buttons two text areas, and have them laid out with realtive or linear layouts?
I have used a scroll view with layout inflator to achieve this at the moment, but I'm thinking listview would be better maybe?

yes you can. you need to use a custom list view for that. making an activity by adding a listview in it and then referencing another xml to that listview using an AAdapter so that every element of the listview has the layout of the second xml file. this tutorial should help you understand the idea.

Yes you can place any widgets for the particular List Item for your listview.
For defining that kind of ListView, you have to define a custom adapter, follow the below steps:
Define a one row file for the list item, say for example, RelativeLayout with 2-3 TextViews.
Define a class by extending BaseAdapter.
Inflate the XML and do display operations inside the getView() method of this class.
Set this adapter to the ListView.

easier way to make listview in android?

i have to make a listview in which there are two elements to be displayed vertically.
i know that to use the default adapter given with android there can only be one array and one text resource...ie if i am using android.R.layout.simple_list_view then there is only one text resource.
To make a custom Listview i am doing the following:
making a xml layout file for each element of the listview
extending a custom adapter class which extends the baseadapter
in the getview method of the custom adapter class i am inflating the view for each element and then returning with the info i want the listview element to have from an array which i have passed as a constructor to the custom adapter class.
this seems very tedious because there are several instances where i have to make listview where sometimes there are three text elements in each listview element and sometimes 2 text elements in each listview element.
is there an easier way to do the above.
thank you in advance.

With such simple layout, I'd suggest you to just use a LinearLayout and 2-3 TextViews (or any view you need, even an horizontal LinearLayout). Nothing will beat that simplicity. There's no need for a ListView in that case.

You could consider creating a generic, reusable ListView layout file that is loaded up with all the various elements you need (which, hopefully is a concise few). You could default as many of those elements in the layout XML file with android:visible="false" and then programmatically toggle the visibility.
Why can't you just reuse the adapter? It's got plenty of loading/unloading methods associated with it.
Yes, what Aleadam is saying; if you only have a couple of things why use a ListView? TextView would seem a much quicker way to prototype data display!

How to use custom color for each textview in listview that extends SimpleAdapter in Android?

I have a listview with custom rows and that extends SimpleAdapter.
Each row consist of two linear layouts : 1st having two textviews of which one is hidden in horizontal orientation, second having two textviews in horizontal orientation.
Now depending on the value in hidden textview , I want to setcolor for the remaining items for the row.
To put it as simple:
each listview item has some custom colors the value of which comes from the hidden field.
I have done this by overriding getview() for the simpleadapter and returning view for each, but this makes list very slow to render (and that I think is obvious as so much of work for each view before showing it).
Can I do this in some more efficient way ? like making views and then add up to list instead of using xml layout maybe one solution OR any other ? Any help ? Thanks.

If you use convertView in your adapter, I would not expect you to have any particular speed issues. Creating and garbage collecting rows is expensive -- setting some colors on a set of TextViews is not. So, make sure you are using the convertView parameter to recycle your rows.
Here is a free excerpt from one of my books that covers row recycling.