How to create custom Listview in Android

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.

In this tutorial, we show you how to create a custom list view with some images, texts... We want to make a list view to store information about a list of foobal legend, in particular each row has to contain: an image of the legend, the name, the date of birth and the image of his nationality.

Here is a result of this tutorial:

This project is developed in Eclipse 4.2.0.

1. Make application interface: The main layout of this app demo have one text view and one list view.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

    android:layout_width="fill_parent"

    android:layout_height="fill_parent"

    android:orientation="vertical" >

    <TextView

        android:layout_width="fill_parent"

        android:layout_height="wrap_content"

        android:gravity="center"

        android:text="Foolball Legends"

        android:textColor="#008000"

        android:textSize="25dp"

        android:layout_margin="3dp"

        />

    <ListView

        android:id="@+id/FootballLegend_list"

        android:layout_width="fill_parent"

        android:layout_height="fill_parent"

        android:paddingTop="5dp" >

    </ListView>

   

</LinearLayout>

Now is the time we customize our list view by create the layout for each row of it:

<?xmlversion="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

    android:layout_width="fill_parent"

    android:layout_height="wrap_content"

    android:background="@drawable/list_selector"

    android:orientation="horizontal"

    android:padding="5dip">

    <!--  ListRow Left side Thumbnail image -->

    <LinearLayout android:id="@+id/thumbnail"

        android:layout_width="wrap_content"

        android:layout_height="wrap_content"

        android:padding="3dip"

        android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"

        android:layout_marginRight="5dip">

        <ImageView

            android:id="@+id/legendImage"

            android:layout_width="50dip"

            android:layout_height="50dip"/>

    </LinearLayout>

 

    <TextView

        android:id="@+id/legendName"

        android:layout_width="wrap_content"

        android:layout_height="wrap_content"

        android:layout_alignTop="@+id/thumbnail"

        android:layout_toRightOf="@+id/thumbnail"

        android:text="Rihanna Love the way lie"

        android:textColor="#040404"

        android:typeface="sans"

        android:textSize="15dip"

        android:textStyle="bold"/>

    <TextView

        android:id="@+id/legendBorn"

        android:layout_width="fill_parent"

        android:layout_height="wrap_content"

        android:layout_below="@id/legendName"

        android:textColor="#343434"

        android:textSize="10dip"

        android:layout_marginTop="1dip"

        android:layout_toRightOf="@+id/thumbnail"  />

 

    <ImageView

        android:id="@+id/Nation"

        android:layout_width="45dp"

        android:layout_height="30dp"

        android:layout_alignParentRight="true"

        android:layout_marginRight="5dp"

        android:layout_centerVertical="true"/>

</RelativeLayout>

For android:backgroundattribute of list view, we make res/drawable/list_selector.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

<!-- Selector style for listrow -->

<item

 android:state_selected="false"

    android:state_pressed="false"

    android:drawable="@drawable/gradient_bg" />

<item android:state_pressed="true"

    android:drawable="@drawable/gradient_bg_hover" />

<item android:state_selected="true"

    android:state_pressed="false"

    android:drawable="@drawable/gradient_bg_hover" />

</selector>

And for all state of  list selector above we need two file below:

res/drawable/gradient_bg.xml for default background

<?xmlversion="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

    android:shape="rectangle">

  <!--  Gradient Bg for listrow -->

  <gradient

      android:startColor="#f1f1f2"

      android:centerColor="#e7e7e8"

      android:endColor="#cfcfcf"

      android:angle="270"/>

</shape>

And For res/drawable/ gradient_bg_hover.xml for press state:

<?xmlversion="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

    android:shape="rectangle">

  <!-- Gradient BgColor for listrow Selected -->

  <gradient

      android:startColor="#DA7648"

      android:centerColor="#DC6833"

      android:endColor="#C6724B"

      android:angle="270"/>

</shape>

Thus we have completed the design of the interface. Now begin make some codes.

2. Code

2.1. We start by creating the FootballLegend’s object

package DucNguyen.example.customlistview;

public class FootballLegend {

        public FootballLegend(String name, String born, String image, String nation) {

                super();

                this.name = name;

                this.born = born;

                this.image = image;

                this.nation = nation;

        }

        private String name;

        private String born;

        private String image;

        private String nation;

        public String getName() {

                return name;

        }

        public void setName(String nameText) {

                name = nameText;

        }

        public String getNick() {

                return born;

        }

        public void setNick(String born) {

                this.born = born;

        }

        public String getImage() {

                return image;

        }

        public void setImage(String image) {

                this.image = image;

        }

                public String getNation() {

                return nation;

        }

        public void setNation(String image) {

                this.image = nation;

        }

}

2.2. Then create a custom adapter for the list view – FootballLegendListAdapter

package DucNguyen.example.customlistview;

import java.util.List;

import android.content.Context;

import android.graphics.drawable.Drawable;

import android.view.LayoutInflater;

import android.view.View;

import android.view.ViewGroup;

import android.widget.ArrayAdapter;

import android.widget.ImageView;

import android.widget.RelativeLayout;

import android.widget.TextView;

public class FootballLegendListAdapter extends ArrayAdapter<FootballLegend> {

        private int                             resource;

        private LayoutInflater  inflater;

        private Context                 context;

        public FootballLegendListAdapter ( Context ctx, int resourceId, List<FootballLegend> objects) {

                super( ctx, resourceId, objects );

                resource = resourceId;

                inflater = LayoutInflater.from( ctx );

                context=ctx;

        }

        @Override

        public View getView ( int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent ) {

                convertView = ( RelativeLayout ) inflater.inflate( resource, null );

                FootballLegend Legend = getItem( position );

                                TextView legendName = (TextView) convertView.findViewById(R.id.legendName);

                legendName.setText(Legend.getName());

                 

                TextView legendBorn = (TextView) convertView.findViewById(R.id.legendBorn);

                legendBorn.setText(Legend.getNick());

                 

                ImageView legendImage = (ImageView) convertView.findViewById(R.id.legendImage);

                String uri = "drawable/" + Legend.getImage();

            int imageResource = context.getResources().getIdentifier(uri, null, context.getPackageName());

            Drawable image = context.getResources().getDrawable(imageResource);

            legendImage.setImageDrawable(image);

           

            ImageView NationImage = (ImageView) convertView.findViewById(R.id.Nation);

                uri = "drawable/" + Legend.getNation();

            imageResource = context.getResources().getIdentifier(uri, null, context.getPackageName());

            image = context.getResources().getDrawable(imageResource);

            NationImage.setImageDrawable(image);

                return convertView;

        }

}

2.3. And finally, we set adapter for the list view with a array of FootballLegend's objects and setOnItemClickListener for this list view to show a Toast when click on any row on list.

package DucNguyen.example.customlistview;

import java.util.ArrayList;

import java.util.List;  

import android.os.Bundle;

import android.app.Activity;

import android.content.Context; 

import android.view.View;

import android.widget.AdapterView;

import android.widget.ListView;

import android.widget.AdapterView.OnItemClickListener;

import android.widget.Toast;

public class CustomlistviewActivity extends Activity {

        private ListView listViewFootballLegend;

        private Context ctx;

    @Override

    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {

        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

        setContentView(R.layout.activity_customlistview);       

        ctx=this;      

        List<FootballLegend> legendList= new ArrayList<FootballLegend>();

        legendList.add(new FootballLegend("Pele","October 23, 1940 (age 72)","pele","brazil"));

        legendList.add(new FootballLegend("Diego Maradona","October 30, 1960 (age 52)","maradona","argentina"));

        legendList.add(new FootballLegend("Johan Cruyff","April 25, 1947 (age 65)","cruyff","netherlands"));

        legendList.add(new FootballLegend("Franz Beckenbauer","September 11, 1945 (age 67)","beckenbauer","germany"));

        legendList.add(new FootballLegend("Michel Platini","June 21, 1955 (age 57)","platini","france"));

        legendList.add(new FootballLegend("Ronaldo De Lima","September 22, 1976 (age 36)","ronaldo","brazil"));

        listViewFootballLegend = ( ListView ) findViewById( R.id.FootballLegend_list);

        listViewFootballLegend.setAdapter( new FootballLegendListAdapter(ctx, R.layout.legend_row_item, legendList ) );

   

        // Click event for single list row

        listViewFootballLegend.setOnItemClickListener(new OnItemClickListener() {

@Override

        public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> parent, View view, int position, long id) {

                FootballLegend o = (FootballLegend) parent.getItemAtPosition(position); 

                Toast.makeText(CustomlistviewActivity.this, o.getName().toString(), Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

                }

        });            

    }

}

3.DEMO

3.1. Run application

3.2. Click on a row of list view

You can download all source codes of this tutorial from here.

Reference: http://www.androidhive.info