How to animate RecyclerView items when they appear

Question

EDIT :

According to the ItemAnimator documentation :

This class defines the animations that take place on items as changes are made to the adapter.

So unless you add your items one by one to your RecyclerView and refresh the view at each iteration, I don't think ItemAnimator is the solution to your need.

Here is how you can animate the RecyclerView items when they appear using a CustomAdapter :

public class CustomAdapter extends RecyclerView.Adapter<CustomAdapter.ViewHolder>
{
    private Context context;

    // The items to display in your RecyclerView
    private ArrayList<String> items;
    // Allows to remember the last item shown on screen
    private int lastPosition = -1;

    public static class ViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder
    {
        TextView text;
        // You need to retrieve the container (ie the root ViewGroup from your custom_item_layout)
        // It's the view that will be animated
        FrameLayout container;

        public ViewHolder(View itemView)
        {
            super(itemView);
            container = (FrameLayout) itemView.findViewById(R.id.item_layout_container);
            text = (TextView) itemView.findViewById(R.id.item_layout_text);
        }
    }

    public CustomAdapter(ArrayList<String> items, Context context)
    {
        this.items = items;
        this.context = context;
    }

    @Override
    public CustomAdapter.ViewHolder onCreateViewHolder(ViewGroup parent, int viewType)
    {
        View v = LayoutInflater.from(parent.getContext()).inflate(R.layout.custom_item_layout, parent, false);
        return new ViewHolder(v);
    }

    @Override
    public void onBindViewHolder(ViewHolder holder, int position)
    {
        holder.text.setText(items.get(position));

        // Here you apply the animation when the view is bound
        setAnimation(holder.itemView, position);
    }

    /**
     * Here is the key method to apply the animation
     */
    private void setAnimation(View viewToAnimate, int position)
    {
        // If the bound view wasn't previously displayed on screen, it's animated
        if (position > lastPosition)
        {
            Animation animation = AnimationUtils.loadAnimation(context, android.R.anim.slide_in_left);
            viewToAnimate.startAnimation(animation);
            lastPosition = position;
        }
    }
}

And your custom_item_layout would look like this :

<FrameLayout
    android:id="@+id/item_layout_container"
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content">

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/item_layout_text"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceListItemSmall"
        android:gravity="center_vertical"
        android:minHeight="?android:attr/listPreferredItemHeightSmall"/>

</FrameLayout>

For more information about CustomAdapters and RecyclerView, refer to this training on the official documentation.

Problems on fast scroll

Using this method could cause problems with fast scrolling. The view could be reused while the animation is been happening. In order to avoid that is recommendable to clear the animation when is detached.

    @Override
    public void onViewDetachedFromWindow(final RecyclerView.ViewHolder holder)
    {
        ((CustomViewHolder)holder).clearAnimation();
    }

On CustomViewHolder:

    public void clearAnimation()
    {
        mRootLayout.clearAnimation();
    }

Old answer :

Give a look at Gabriele Mariotti's repo, I'm pretty sure you'll find what you need. He provides simple ItemAnimators for the RecyclerView, such as SlideInItemAnimator or SlideScaleItemAnimator.

Made Simple with XML only

Visit Gist Link

res/anim/layout_animation.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
    <layoutAnimation xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        android:animation="@anim/item_animation_fall_down"
        android:animationOrder="normal"
        android:delay="15%" />

res/anim/item_animation_fall_down.xml

<set xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:duration="500">

    <translate
        android:fromYDelta="-20%"
        android:toYDelta="0"
        android:interpolator="@android:anim/decelerate_interpolator"
        />

    <alpha
        android:fromAlpha="0"
        android:toAlpha="1"
        android:interpolator="@android:anim/decelerate_interpolator"
        />

    <scale
        android:fromXScale="105%"
        android:fromYScale="105%"
        android:toXScale="100%"
        android:toYScale="100%"
        android:pivotX="50%"
        android:pivotY="50%"
        android:interpolator="@android:anim/decelerate_interpolator"
        />

</set>

Use in layouts and recylcerview like:

<androidx.recyclerview.widget.RecyclerView
    android:id="@+id/recycler_view"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layoutAnimation="@anim/layout_animation"
    app:layout_behavior="@string/appbar_scrolling_view_behavior" />

I animated fading in of Recyclerview items when they first appear as shown in the code below. Perhaps this will be of use to someone.

private final static int FADE_DURATION = 1000; //FADE_DURATION in milliseconds

@Override
public void onBindViewHolder(ViewHolder holder, int position) {

    holder.getTextView().setText("some text");

    // Set the view to fade in
    setFadeAnimation(holder.itemView);            
}

private void setFadeAnimation(View view) {
    AlphaAnimation anim = new AlphaAnimation(0.0f, 1.0f);
    anim.setDuration(FADE_DURATION);
    view.startAnimation(anim);
}

You can also replace setFadeAnimation() with the following setScaleAnimation() to animate appearance of items by scaling them from a point:

private void setScaleAnimation(View view) {
    ScaleAnimation anim = new ScaleAnimation(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f, Animation.RELATIVE_TO_SELF, 0.5f, Animation.RELATIVE_TO_SELF, 0.5f);
    anim.setDuration(FADE_DURATION);
    view.startAnimation(anim);
}

The code above has some warts in so far as when you scroll the RecyclerView items always fade or scale. If you wish you can add code to just allow the animation to happen when the fragment or activity containing the RecyclerView is first created (e.g. get the system time on creation and only allow animation for the first FADE_DURATION milliseconds).

I created animation from pbm's answer with little modification to make the aninmation run only once

in the other word the Animation appear with you scroll down only

private int lastPosition = -1;

private void setAnimation(View viewToAnimate, int position) {
    // If the bound view wasn't previously displayed on screen, it's animated
    if (position > lastPosition) {
        ScaleAnimation anim = new ScaleAnimation(0.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f, Animation.RELATIVE_TO_SELF, 0.5f, Animation.RELATIVE_TO_SELF, 0.5f);
        anim.setDuration(new Random().nextInt(501));//to make duration random number between [0,501)
        viewToAnimate.startAnimation(anim);
        lastPosition = position;
    }
}

and in onBindViewHolder call the function

@Override
public void onBindViewHolder(ViewHolder holder, int position) {

holder.getTextView().setText("some text");

// call Animation function
setAnimation(holder.itemView, position);            
}

You can add a android:layoutAnimation="@anim/rv_item_animation" attribute to RecyclerView like this:

<android.support.v7.widget.RecyclerView
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"                                        
    android:layoutAnimation="@anim/layout_animation_fall_down"
    />

thanks for the excellent article here: https://proandroiddev.com/enter-animation-using-recyclerview-and-layoutanimation-part-1-list-75a874a5d213

A good place to start is this: https://github.com/wasabeef/recyclerview-animators/blob/master/animators/src/main/java/jp/wasabeef/recyclerview/adapters/AnimationAdapter.java

You don't even need the full library, that class is enough. Then if you just implement your Adapter class giving an animator like this:

@Override
protected Animator[] getAnimators(View view) {
    return new Animator[]{
            ObjectAnimator.ofFloat(view, "translationY", view.getMeasuredHeight(), 0)
    };
}

@Override
public long getItemId(final int position) {
    return getWrappedAdapter().getItemId(position);
}

you'll see items appearing from the bottom as they scroll, also avoiding the problem with the fast scroll.