Android: Showing cards like layout as in Google Keep

Question

I was wondering how to show the snapshot of my notes, checklists, images in the grid view. I have no trouble creating the grid view but creating a preview of it is the challenge I'm facing right now as I need to add different type of views(text, checklist, imageview) to the grid according to their time of creation. Works fine for a single type of view like image or text only.

Or in other words. How do I add the different views dynamically to the GridView Adapter?

All or any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

Answer 1

They surely do not use a GridView for google Keep - but probably an Adapter nonetheless.

To use different Views with your Adapter you can use different View types:

1. Override getViewTypeCount() to return the number of View types you support.
2. Return the appropriate type in getItemViewType(int position) for this specific item.
3. Create the correct View in getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent).

Keep in mind that the rules for recycling, ViewHolder and so on still apply. For multiple types recycling only happens for the correct type.

Marcus Körner shared a gist by Jake Wharton on G+ recently that might be useful.

Answer 2

More than likely Google is using something similar to GridLayout, if not actually using a GridLayout.

Chances are the layout is also created programmatically to allow for the widgets to be different sizes based on the content that they each display.