Android – RecyclerView vs. ListView

androidandroid-recyclerviewlistview

From android developer (Creating Lists and Cards):

The RecyclerView widget is a more advanced and flexible version of
ListView.

Okay, it sounds cool, but when I saw this example picture, I got really confused about the difference between these two.

enter image description here

The picture above can be easily created by ListView using custom adapter.

So, in what situation should one use RecyclerView?

Best Answer

RecyclerView was created as a ListView improvement, so yes, you can create an attached list with ListView control, but using RecyclerView is easier as it:

Reuses cells while scrolling up/down - this is possible with implementing View Holder in the ListView adapter, but it was an optional thing, while in the RecycleView it's the default way of writing adapter.
Decouples list from its container - so you can put list items easily at run time in the different containers (linearLayout, gridLayout) with setting LayoutManager.

Example:

mRecyclerView = (RecyclerView) findViewById(R.id.my_recycler_view);
mRecyclerView.setLayoutManager(new LinearLayoutManager(this));
//or
mRecyclerView.setLayoutManager(new GridLayoutManager(this, 2));

Animates common list actions - Animations are decoupled and delegated to ItemAnimator.

There is more about RecyclerView, but I think these points are the main ones.

So, to conclude, RecyclerView is a more flexible control for handling "list data" that follows patterns of delegation of concerns and leaves for itself only one task - recycling items.

Related Solutions

Android – How to lazy load images in ListView in Android

Here's what I created to hold the images that my app is currently displaying. Please note that the "Log" object in use here is my custom wrapper around the final Log class inside Android.

package com.wilson.android.library;

/*
 Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
distributed with this work for additional information
regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
"License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
software distributed under the License is distributed on an
"AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
specific language governing permissions and limitations
under the License.
*/
import java.io.IOException;

public class DrawableManager {
    private final Map<String, Drawable> drawableMap;

    public DrawableManager() {
        drawableMap = new HashMap<String, Drawable>();
    }

    public Drawable fetchDrawable(String urlString) {
        if (drawableMap.containsKey(urlString)) {
            return drawableMap.get(urlString);
        }

        Log.d(this.getClass().getSimpleName(), "image url:" + urlString);
        try {
            InputStream is = fetch(urlString);
            Drawable drawable = Drawable.createFromStream(is, "src");


            if (drawable != null) {
                drawableMap.put(urlString, drawable);
                Log.d(this.getClass().getSimpleName(), "got a thumbnail drawable: " + drawable.getBounds() + ", "
                        + drawable.getIntrinsicHeight() + "," + drawable.getIntrinsicWidth() + ", "
                        + drawable.getMinimumHeight() + "," + drawable.getMinimumWidth());
            } else {
              Log.w(this.getClass().getSimpleName(), "could not get thumbnail");
            }

            return drawable;
        } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
            Log.e(this.getClass().getSimpleName(), "fetchDrawable failed", e);
            return null;
        } catch (IOException e) {
            Log.e(this.getClass().getSimpleName(), "fetchDrawable failed", e);
            return null;
        }
    }

    public void fetchDrawableOnThread(final String urlString, final ImageView imageView) {
        if (drawableMap.containsKey(urlString)) {
            imageView.setImageDrawable(drawableMap.get(urlString));
        }

        final Handler handler = new Handler() {
            @Override
            public void handleMessage(Message message) {
                imageView.setImageDrawable((Drawable) message.obj);
            }
        };

        Thread thread = new Thread() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                //TODO : set imageView to a "pending" image
                Drawable drawable = fetchDrawable(urlString);
                Message message = handler.obtainMessage(1, drawable);
                handler.sendMessage(message);
            }
        };
        thread.start();
    }

    private InputStream fetch(String urlString) throws MalformedURLException, IOException {
        DefaultHttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient();
        HttpGet request = new HttpGet(urlString);
        HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(request);
        return response.getEntity().getContent();
    }
}

Android – Background ListView becomes black when scrolling

Add an attribute on the ListView Tag

android:cacheColorHint="#00000000" // setting transparent color

For more details check this blog

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Android – How to lazy load images in ListView in Android

Android – Background ListView becomes black when scrolling

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