Call to ListView's setEmpty method not working (nothing is displayed when the list is empty)

Question

I have an Activity which contains a ListView defined in XML (its not subclassing the ListActivity class).

I want to display a message when the ListView is empty, so I tried doing so with the setEmptyView method:

listView = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.list);
TextView emptyListText = new TextView(this);
// also tried with the following line uncommented
// emptyListText.setId(android.R.id.empty);
emptyListText.setText(getString(R.string.EmptyList));
listView.setEmptyView(emptyListText);

But it is not working.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

Answer 1

You need to add the following two lines to your code after you call setText():

emptyListText.setVisibility(View.GONE);
((ViewGroup)listView.getParent()).addView(emptyListText);

If the visibility is not set to GONE (hidden), then the TextView will always be rendered visible. The second line places the TextView into the ListView's ViewGroup -- which is automatically handled when using declarative XML Views.

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Source: http://www.littlefluffytoys.com/?p=74

Answer 2

Try it this way...

First a simple activity_main.xml layout

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    tools:context=".MainActivity" >

    <ListView
        android:id="@+id/root_list"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="0dip"
        android:layout_weight="1" />

    <ViewStub
        android:id="@+id/root_empty"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent" 
        android:layout="@layout/empty_view"
        android:visibility="gone" />

</LinearLayout>

and from your MainActivity.java:

public class MainActivity extends Activity {
    ListView mListView;

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        this.mListView = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.root_list);
        mListView.setEmptyView(findViewById(R.id.root_empty));

        mListView.setAdapter(null);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.activity_main, menu);
        return true;
    }    
}

Whatever is placed in R.layout.empty_view will appear whenever the adapter is null or isEmpty returns true.

I used this for the empty_view.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/empty_view"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical" >

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:layout_gravity="center"
        android:background="@color/gray"
        android:gravity="center"
        android:text="@string/list_empty"
        android:textColor="@color/white"
        android:textSize="24sp" />

</LinearLayout>