Keyboard navigation with Android GridView doesn't scroll grid

Question

I'm trying to use a keyboard to navigate through a GridView of items.

In the short demo, which only contains a GridView (containing item views with android:focusable="true"), you can see that none of the items gain focus - the grid is the thing that scrolls (the items don't turn orange).

Adding the android:descendantFocusability="afterDescendants" allows each item to be focused first, but still, doesn't continue to scroll the GridView so you can navigate down:

Clicking on an item (with mouse or by pressing Return if the item was focused, after the descendent focusability fix) turns an item blue - indicating it's in pressed state.

@layout/activity_my.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<GridView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  android:id="@+id/listview"
  android:layout_width="match_parent"
  android:layout_height="match_parent"
  android:numColumns="2" />

@layout/dummy_item.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<TextView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  android:id="@+id/dummy_item_parent"
  android:layout_width="match_parent"
  android:layout_height="150dp"
  android:gravity="center"
  android:focusable="true"
  android:clickable="true"
  android:background="@drawable/item_background" />

@drawable/item_background.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
  <item android:state_pressed="true" android:drawable="@android:color/holo_blue_light" />
  <item android:state_focused="true" android:drawable="@android:color/holo_orange_light" />
  <item android:drawable="@android:color/holo_red_light" />
</selector>

MyActivity.java (with ListAdapter):

public class MyActivity extends Activity {

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

        AbsListView listview = (AbsListView) findViewById(R.id.listview);
        listview.setAdapter(new DummyAdapter(getLayoutInflater()));
    }

    private static class DummyAdapter extends BaseAdapter {

        private static final int COUNT = 25;

        private final LayoutInflater layoutInflater;

        DummyAdapter(LayoutInflater layoutInflater) {
            this.layoutInflater = layoutInflater;
        }

        @Override
        public int getCount() {
            return COUNT;
        }

        @Override
        public String getItem(int position) {
            return "Item " + position;
        }

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

        @Override
        public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
            View view = convertView;
            if (view == null) {
                view = layoutInflater.inflate(R.layout.dummy_item, parent, false);
            }
            ((TextView) view).setText(getItem(position));
            return view;
        }

    }

}

Swapping the GridView for a ListView, without changing the adapter, or the item views/item view attributes, will behave as expected - items can be focused and the ListView will scroll to the bottom, so that all items can be focused using just keyboard input. Also, using a RecyclerView with LinearLayoutManager / GridLayoutManager will also work correctly.

I have tried this on API 16 and 22 with the same results. I have tried settings the android:descendantFocusability attribute on the GridView to afterDescendents with the same result.

Answer 1

I tried your code and it doesn't work with GridView, as you said, but i have some issue also with ListView. The ListView scrolls correctly, but only the first item of every page is highlighted.

With these little modifications you can achieve the effect you want on both GridView and ListView.

Remove android:descendantFocusability in activity_my.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<GridView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/listview"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:numColumns="2" />

Remove android:focusable in dummy_item.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<TextView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/dummy_item_parent"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="150dp"
    android:gravity="center"
    android:clickable="true"
    android:background="@drawable/item_background" />

Change from android:state_focused to android:state_selected in item_background.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:state_pressed="true" android:drawable="@android:color/holo_blue_light" />
    <item android:state_selected="true" android:drawable="@android:color/holo_orange_light" />
    <item android:drawable="@android:color/holo_red_light" />
</selector>