Can I pass the ViewModel to a RecyclerView Adapter and observe a LiveData?

Question

I'm started to implement MVVM and I do not know if use the ViewModel inside my Adapter is a Good Practice or an AntiPattern.

To give you an example, think about a list of colors and an Image that you will change the background. In that case, I'm observing the selected Color and binding the background color to display in the UI.

But I'm observing the colorSelected in two places:

• In the Fragment in order to change the background color
• In the Adapter to display which color is selected

So, Am I using MVVM properly when I passing and observing the ViewModel to the Adapter?

Answer 1

I am not sure now if it is good pattern, but there is one problem with this: this way your adapter is tied to your ViewModel meaning you can't reuse it with other ViewModel on another screen. On another hand it is much easier to work without those additional callbacks from recyclerView which makes implementation easier. I guess it is "better" to use callbacks, but "easier" to pass ViewModel (I think CG should deal with it without a problem)