Dealing With RecyclerView, NestedScrollView, and CardView

Question

I'm going to achieve this UI in my App:

Well, Some ways that I tried before:

1. Using CollapsingToolbarLayout I put my CardView insid of CollapsingToolbarLayout and put them all in AppBarLAyout.

<android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent" >

    <android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar">

        <android.support.design.widget.CollapsingToolbarLayout
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            app:layout_scrollFlags="scroll|exitUntilCollapsed" >

            <CardView
                android:layout_width="match_parent"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                />
                  <!-- My Views Goes there -->
            </CardView

            <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
                android:id="@+id/flexible.example.toolbar"
                android:layout_width="match_parent"
                android:layout_height="?attr/actionBarSize"
                android:background="@null"
                app:layout_collapseMode="pin"
                style="@style/ToolBarWithNavigationBack"
                />
        </android.support.design.widget.CollapsingToolbarLayout>

    </android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout>

    <RecyclerView
        app:layout_behavior="@string/appbar_scrolling_view_behavior"
    ></RecyclerView>

</android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout>

P.S: I removed unrelated codes, don't mention me

This Way works correctly but!!! When CardView height goes taller than screen height, it's content igonered by AppBarLayout and does not show to user

2. Using NestedScrollView I put CardView and RecyclerView inside NestedScrollView. But the problem is When User Reached To end of RecyclerView and then scroll back to top, fling goes laggy and buggy and stop some where ans user have to scroll more and more to get to top!

<android.support.v4.widget.NestedScrollView
    android:id="@+id/nested_scrollbar"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:layout_gravity="fill_vertical"
    app:layout_behavior="@string/appbar_scrolling_view_behavior"
    android:scrollbars="none" >
        <LinearLayout
            android:id="@+id/nested_scrollbar_linear"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:orientation="vertical" >

                <android.support.v7.widget.CardView
                    android:id="@+id/flexible.example.cardview"
                    android:layout_width="match_parent"
                    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                    app:cardBackgroundColor="@color/post_card_backgroind"
                    app:cardCornerRadius="0dp"
                    app:cardElevation="0dp">

                </android.support.v7.widget.CardView>

                <android.support.v7.widget.RecyclerView
                    android:id="@+id/list_view"
                    android:layout_width="match_parent"
                    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                    android:layout_marginBottom="@dimen/four"
                    android:layout_marginEnd="@dimen/four"
                    android:layout_marginLeft="@dimen/four"
                    android:layout_marginRight="@dimen/four"
                    android:layout_marginStart="@dimen/four"
                    android:layout_marginTop="@dimen/four"
                    app:layout_behavior="@string/appbar_scrolling_view_behavior" />

    </LinearLayout>

</android.support.v4.widget.NestedScrollView>

How can fix this issue?! I don't want use adapters that make header for recyclerview, I got performance related issue from some of them.

Answer

Put RecyclerView inside NestedScrollView as you can see in 2 and apply .setNestedScrollingEnabled and set it to false

Answer 1

You should use getItemViewType. It is easy and won't create any performance overhead. Change the code in your Adapter like this:

public class MyAdapter extends RecyclerView.Adapter<RecyclerView.ViewHolder> {
    class CardViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder {
        ...
    }

    class ItemViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder {
        ...
    }

    @Override
    public int getItemViewType(int position) {
        if (position == 0) {
            return 0; // Card Type
        } else {
            return 1; // Item Type
        };
    }

    @Override
    public RecyclerView.ViewHolder onCreateViewHolder(ViewGroup parent, int viewType) {
         switch (viewType) {
             case 0: 
                 // Card Type
                 return new CardViewHolder(...);
             case 1: 
                 // Item Type
                 return new ItemViewHolder(...);
         }
    }

    // Optional
    // If your data list does not contain CardView data
    // You may need to add extra count in adapter

    @Override
    public final int getItemCount() {
        // Add one count for CardView data
        return list.size() + 1;
    }

    @Override
    public T getItem(int position) {
        // As the position is change because of CardView at position 0
        // So you may have to decrement the corresponding index 
        return list.get(position - 1);
    }
}

UPDATE 1

If you don't want to update the adapter, you can use

<android.support.v4.widget.NestedScrollView
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent">
    <LinearLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content">
        <CardView
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content">
              <!-- Views Goes there -->
        </CardView>
        <android.support.v7.widget.RecyclerView
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            // This is the key
            android:nestedScrollingEnabled="false"/>
    </LinearLayout>
</android.support.v4.widget.NestedScrollView>

android:nestedScrollingEnabled is available in API Level 21 through xml.
For lower APIs use java method i.e. recyclerView.setNestedScrollingEnabled(false); or ViewCompat.setNestedScrollingEnabled(recyclerView, false);

NOTE (12-12-2016)

When using nested scroll. Be aware of the known issue of RecyclerView not recycling views as asked here and here (apparent reason answered by Arpit Ratan and me respectively). So I'll suggest to go with the first solution i.e. using getItemViewType. For more details, see complete and better answers like this or this.

UPDATE 2

You can use setFullSpan. If the orientation of your StaggeredGridLayoutManager is vertical, you can use the following code to span it's width to full screen:

public void onBindViewHolder(RecyclerView.ViewHolder viewHolder, int position) {
    if (position == 0) {
        StaggeredGridLayoutManager.LayoutParams layoutParams = (StaggeredGridLayoutManager.LayoutParams) viewHolder.itemView.getLayoutParams();
        layoutParams.setFullSpan(true);
    }
}