Selecting multiple items in ListView

Question

Actually you can ;) It's just a matter of user experience, right?

Try this, (1) for list control set

listView.setChoiceMode(ListView.CHOICE_MODE_MULTIPLE);   
listView.setItemsCanFocus(false);

(2) define list item as

<CheckedTextView 
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="?android:attr/listPreferredItemHeight"
    android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge"
    android:gravity="center_vertical"
    android:paddingLeft="6dip"
    android:paddingRight="6dip"
    android:checkMark="?android:attr/listChoiceIndicatorMultiple"
    android:background="@drawable/txt_view_bg" />

This is same as android.R.layout.simple_list_item_multiple_choice except android:background="@drawable/txt_view_bg

(3) And define drawable txt_view_bg.xml as

<item android:drawable="@drawable/selected"
  android:state_checked="true" />  
<item android:drawable="@drawable/not_selected" />

Note:- The preferred way to handle multiple choice is to track choices your-self with on click item click, rather than depending on its state in list.

Step 1: setAdapter to your listview.

 listView.setAdapter(new ArrayAdapter<String>(this, android.R.layout.simple_list_item_multiple_choice, GENRES)); 

Step 2: set choice mode for listview .The second line of below code represents which checkbox should be checked.

listView.setChoiceMode(ListView.CHOICE_MODE_MULTIPLE);
listView.setItemChecked(2, true);

listView.setOnItemClickListener(this);



 private static  String[] GENRES = new String[] {
        "Action", "Adventure", "Animation", "Children", "Comedy", "Documentary", "Drama",
        "Foreign", "History", "Independent", "Romance", "Sci-Fi", "Television", "Thriller"
    };

Step 3: Checked views are returned in SparseBooleanArray, so you might use the below code to get key or values.The below sample are simply displayed selected names in a single String.

@Override
    public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> adapter, View arg1, int arg2, long arg3)
    {

    SparseBooleanArray sp=getListView().getCheckedItemPositions();

    String str="";
    for(int i=0;i<sp.size();i++)
    {
        str+=GENRES[sp.keyAt(i)]+",";
    }
    Toast.makeText(this, ""+str, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

    }

This example stores the values you have checked and displays them in a toast. And it updates when you uncheck items http://android-coding.blogspot.ro/2011/09/listview-with-multiple-choice.html

To "update" the Toast message after unchecking some items, just put this line inside the for loop:

if (sp.valueAt(i))

so it results:

for(int i=0;i<sp.size();i++)
{
    if (sp.valueAt(i))
        str+=names[sp.keyAt(i)]+",";
}