android listview display all available items without scroll with static header

Question

I'm having a little difficulties while trying to get a certain layout to work: I want to have list. List does not have to be scrollable, but should be shown completely. But the page itself should be able to scroll (with the lists in it), if the total content ist higher than the screen.

<ScrollView
     xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
     android:layout_width="fill_parent"
     android:layout_height="wrap_content"
     >

     <LinearLayout
         xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
         android:id="@+id/linear_layout"
         android:orientation="vertical"
         android:layout_width="fill_parent"
         android:layout_height="wrap_content"
         android:layout_weight="1"
         android:background="#ff181818"
         >
           <Textview android:id="@+id/my_text" text="header contents goes here" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>
           <Textview android:id="@+id/headertext" text="header contents goes here" android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>

          <ListView
               android:id="@+id/my_list1"
               android:layout_height="wrap_content"
               android:layout_width="fill_parent"
          /> 
     </LinearLayout> 

</ScrollView>

it only uses a small part of the screen (about 2 lines per list), instead of filling the available height, and the lists themselves can be scrolled. How can I change the layout to always show the whole lists but have the screen be scrollalbe?

Answer 1

The solution I used is to replace ListView with LinearLayout. You can create all your items inside LinearLayout, they will all be displayed. So there's really no need to use ListView.

LinearLayout list = (LinearLayout)findViewById(R.id.list_recycled_parts);
for (int i=0; i<products.size(); i++) {
  Product product = products.get(i);
  View vi = inflater.inflate(R.layout.product_item, null);
  list.addView(vi);
}

Answer 2

As @Alex noted in the accepted answer that LinearLayout is hardly a replacement. I had a problem where LinearLayout was not an option, that's when i came across this blog. I will put the code here for reference purposes. Hope it helps someone out there!

public class UIUtils {

    /**
     * Sets ListView height dynamically based on the height of the items.
     *
     * @param listView to be resized
     * @return true if the listView is successfully resized, false otherwise
     */
    public static boolean setListViewHeightBasedOnItems(ListView listView) {

        ListAdapter listAdapter = listView.getAdapter();
        if (listAdapter != null) {

            int numberOfItems = listAdapter.getCount();

            // Get total height of all items.
            int totalItemsHeight = 0;
            for (int itemPos = 0; itemPos < numberOfItems; itemPos++) {
                View item = listAdapter.getView(itemPos, null, listView);
                item.measure(0, 0);
                totalItemsHeight += item.getMeasuredHeight();
            }

            // Get total height of all item dividers.
            int totalDividersHeight = listView.getDividerHeight() *
                    (numberOfItems - 1);

            // Set list height.
            ViewGroup.LayoutParams params = listView.getLayoutParams();
            params.height = totalItemsHeight + totalDividersHeight;
            listView.setLayoutParams(params);
            listView.requestLayout();

            return true;

        } else {
            return false;
        }

    }
}

Usage:

//initializing the adapter
listView.setAdapter(adapter);
UIUtils.setListViewHeightBasedOnItems(listView);

//whenever the data changes
adapter.notifyDataSetChanged();
UIUtils.setListViewHeightBasedOnItems(listView);

Answer 3

You can make your own customlistview. (It can extends ListView/ExpandableListView/GridView) and override the onMeasure method with this. With this you'll never need to call a function or anything. Just use it in your xml.

@Override
public void onMeasure(int widthMeasureSpec, int heightMeasureSpec) {
    int expandSpec = MeasureSpec.makeMeasureSpec(Integer.MAX_VALUE >> 2,
            MeasureSpec.AT_MOST);
    super.onMeasure(widthMeasureSpec, expandSpec);
}

Answer 4

I had a ListView in my layout and wanted to use a library which can't handle a ListView here because it wraps it into a ScrollView. The best solution for me is based on Fedor´s answer.

Since I already got an ArrayAdapter for the ListView I wanted to re-use it:

LinearLayout listViewReplacement = (LinearLayout) findViewById(R.id.listViewReplacement);
NamesRowItemAdapter adapter = new NamesRowItemAdapter(this, namesInList);
for (int i = 0; i < adapter.getCount(); i++) {
    View view = adapter.getView(i, null, listViewReplacement);
    listViewReplacement.addView(view);
}

For me this works fine because I just need to display dynamic data varying from 1 to 5 elements. I just had to add my own divider.