How to properly highlight selected item on RecyclerView?

Question

I am trying to use a RecyclerView as a horizontal ListView. I am trying to figure out how to highlight the selected item. When I click on one of the items, it gets selected and it is highlighted properly but when I click on another one, the second one gets highlighted with the older one.

Here is my onClick function:

@Override
public void onClick(View view) {

    if(selectedListItem!=null){
        Log.d(TAG, "selectedListItem " + getPosition() + " " + item);
        selectedListItem.setBackgroundColor(Color.RED);
    }
    Log.d(TAG, "onClick " + getPosition() + " " + item);
    viewHolderListener.onIndexChanged(getPosition());
    selectedPosition = getPosition();
    view.setBackgroundColor(Color.CYAN); 
    selectedListItem = view;
}

Here is the onBindViewHolder:

@Override
public void onBindViewHolder(ViewHolder viewHolder, int position) {   
    viewHolder.setItem(fruitsData[position]);
    if(selectedPosition == position)
        viewHolder.itemView.setBackgroundColor(Color.CYAN);    
    else
        viewHolder.itemView.setBackgroundColor(Color.RED);

}

Answer 1

This is much simple way to do it.

Have a private int selectedPos = RecyclerView.NO_POSITION; in the RecyclerView Adapter class, and under onBindViewHolder method try:

@Override
public void onBindViewHolder(ViewHolder viewHolder, int position) {   
    viewHolder.itemView.setSelected(selectedPos == position);

}

And in your OnClick event modify:

@Override
public void onClick(View view) {
     notifyItemChanged(selectedPos);
     selectedPos = getLayoutPosition();
     notifyItemChanged(selectedPos); 
}

Works like a charm for Navigtional Drawer and other RecyclerView Item Adapters.

Note: Be sure to use a background color in your layout using a selector like colabug clarified:

<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
  <item android:drawable="@color/pressed_color" android:state_pressed="true"/>
  <item android:drawable="@color/selected_color" android:state_selected="true"/>
  <item android:drawable="@color/focused_color" android:state_focused="true"/>
</selector>

Otherwise setSelected(..) will do nothing, rendering this solution useless.

Answer 2

UPDATE [26/Jul/2017]:

As the Pawan mentioned in the comment about that IDE warning about not to using that fixed position, I have just modified my code as below. The click listener is moved to ViewHolder, and there I am getting the position using getAdapterPosition() method

int selected_position = 0; // You have to set this globally in the Adapter class

@Override
public void onBindViewHolder(ViewHolder holder, int position) {
    Item item = items.get(position);

    // Here I am just highlighting the background
    holder.itemView.setBackgroundColor(selected_position == position ? Color.GREEN : Color.TRANSPARENT);
}

public class ViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder implements View.OnClickListener {

    public ViewHolder(View itemView) {
        super(itemView);
        itemView.setOnClickListener(this);
    }

    @Override
    public void onClick(View v) {
        // Below line is just like a safety check, because sometimes holder could be null,
        // in that case, getAdapterPosition() will return RecyclerView.NO_POSITION
        if (getAdapterPosition() == RecyclerView.NO_POSITION) return;

        // Updating old as well as new positions
        notifyItemChanged(selected_position);
        selected_position = getAdapterPosition();
        notifyItemChanged(selected_position);

        // Do your another stuff for your onClick
    }
}

hope this'll help.

Answer 3

I wrote a base adapter class to automatically handle item selection with a RecyclerView. Just derive your adapter from it and use drawable state lists with state_selected, like you would do with a list view.

I have a Blog Post Here about it, but here is the code:

public abstract class TrackSelectionAdapter<VH extends TrackSelectionAdapter.ViewHolder> extends RecyclerView.Adapter<VH> {
    // Start with first item selected
    private int focusedItem = 0;

    @Override
    public void onAttachedToRecyclerView(final RecyclerView recyclerView) {
        super.onAttachedToRecyclerView(recyclerView);

        // Handle key up and key down and attempt to move selection
        recyclerView.setOnKeyListener(new View.OnKeyListener() {
            @Override
            public boolean onKey(View v, int keyCode, KeyEvent event) {
                RecyclerView.LayoutManager lm = recyclerView.getLayoutManager();

                // Return false if scrolled to the bounds and allow focus to move off the list
                if (event.getAction() == KeyEvent.ACTION_DOWN) {
                    if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_DPAD_DOWN) {
                        return tryMoveSelection(lm, 1);
                    } else if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_DPAD_UP) {
                        return tryMoveSelection(lm, -1);
                    }
                }

                return false;
            }
        });
    }

    private boolean tryMoveSelection(RecyclerView.LayoutManager lm, int direction) {
        int tryFocusItem = focusedItem + direction;

        // If still within valid bounds, move the selection, notify to redraw, and scroll
        if (tryFocusItem >= 0 && tryFocusItem < getItemCount()) {
            notifyItemChanged(focusedItem);
            focusedItem = tryFocusItem;
            notifyItemChanged(focusedItem);
            lm.scrollToPosition(focusedItem);
            return true;
        }

        return false;
    }

    @Override
    public void onBindViewHolder(VH viewHolder, int i) {
        // Set selected state; use a state list drawable to style the view
        viewHolder.itemView.setSelected(focusedItem == i);
    }

    public class ViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder {
        public ViewHolder(View itemView) {
            super(itemView);

            // Handle item click and set the selection
            itemView.setOnClickListener(new View.OnClickListener() {
                @Override
                public void onClick(View v) {
                    // Redraw the old selection and the new
                    notifyItemChanged(focusedItem);
                    focusedItem = getLayoutPosition();
                    notifyItemChanged(focusedItem);
                }
            });
        }
    }
} 

Answer 4

As noted in this linked question, setting listeners for viewHolders should be done in onCreateViewHolder. That said, the implementation below was originally aimed at multiple selection, but I threw a hack in the snippet to force single selection.(*1)

// an array of selected items (Integer indices) 
private final ArrayList<Integer> selected = new ArrayList<>();

// items coming into view
@Override
public void onBindViewHolder(final ViewHolder holder, final int position) {
    // each time an item comes into view, its position is checked
    // against "selected" indices
    if (!selected.contains(position)){
        // view not selected
        holder.parent.setBackgroundColor(Color.LTGRAY);
    }
    else
        // view is selected
        holder.parent.setBackgroundColor(Color.CYAN);
}

// selecting items
@Override
public boolean onLongClick(View v) {
        
        // select (set color) immediately.
        v.setBackgroundColor(Color.CYAN);

        // (*1)
        // forcing single selection here...
        if (selected.isEmpty()){
            selected.add(position); // (done - see note)
        }else {
            int oldSelected = selected.get(0);
            selected.clear(); // (*1)... and here.
            selected.add(position);
            // note: We do not notify that an item has been selected
            // because that work is done here.  We instead send
            // notifications for items which have been deselected.
            notifyItemChanged(oldSelected);
        }
        return false;
}