Changing background color of ListView items on Android

Question

How can I change background color of ListView items on a per-item basis. When I use android:backgroundColor in the ListView item layout I can achieve this, however the list selector is no longer visible. I can make the selector visible again by setting drawSelectorOnTop to true but then the selector overlays the whole item.

Any ideas how to change those background colors and keep the selector?

PS I would rather not change the selector itself.

EDIT: Authors of GMail application have managed to achieve exactly this so it's definitely possible.

Solution 1

You have to create a different state drawable for each color you want to use.

For example: list_selector_read.xml and list_selector_unread.xml.

All you need to do is set everything to transparent except the android:state_window_focused="false" item.

Then when you are drawing your list you call setBackgroundResource(R.drawable.list_selector_unread/read) for each row.

You don't set a listSelector on the ListView at all. That will maintain the default selector for your particular flavor of Android.

Solution 2

This is a modification based on the above code, a simplest code:

private static int save = -1;

public void onListItemClick(ListView parent, View v, int position, long id) { 

    parent.getChildAt(position).setBackgroundColor(Color.BLUE);

    if (save != -1 && save != position){
        parent.getChildAt(save).setBackgroundColor(Color.BLACK);
    }

    save = position;                

}

I hope you find it useful

greetings!

Solution 3

Ok, I got it to work like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:state_pressed="false" android:drawable="@color/BackgroundColor" />
    <item android:drawable="@color/transparent" />
</selector>

YMMV!

Solution 4

No one seemed to provide any examples of doing this solely using an adapter, so I thought I would post my code snippet for displaying ListViews where the "curSelected" item has a different background:

final ListView lv = (ListView)findViewById(R.id.lv);
lv.setAdapter(new BaseAdapter()
{
    public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent)
    {
        if (convertView == null)
        {
            convertView = new TextView(ListHighlightTestActivity.this);
            convertView.setPadding(10, 10, 10, 10);
            ((TextView)convertView).setTextColor(Color.WHITE);
        }

        convertView.setBackgroundColor((position == curSelected) ? 
            Color.argb(0x80, 0x20, 0xa0, 0x40) : Color.argb(0, 0, 0, 0));
        ((TextView)convertView).setText((String)getItem(position));

        return convertView;
    }

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

    public Object getItem(int position)
    {
        return "item " + position;
    }

    public int getCount()
    {
        return 20;
    }
});

This has always been a helpful approach for me for when appearance of list items needs to change dynamically.

Solution 5

mAgendaListView.setOnItemClickListener(new OnItemClickListener() {
public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> parent, View view, int position, long id) {
//view.setBackgroundColor(Color.RED);

for(int i=0; i<parent.getChildCount(); i++)
{
     if(i == position)
     {
               parent.getChildAt(i).setBackgroundColor(Color.BLUE);
     }
     else
     {
               parent.getChildAt(i).setBackgroundColor(Color.BLACK);
     }

 }

View more solutions

Comments

[Marek Stój]

Unfortunately this doesn't work. Setting BackgroundDrawable has the same effect as setting BackgroundColor - the selector is drawn first so it's hidden.

[CommonsWare]

Change your android:drawSelectorOnTop to be false.

[Rohit]

it highlights the 2 items at the same time. there is some problem in it.

[Engineer]

+1 This should be the accepted answer. And row.setBackgroundResource() happens either in YourCustomArrayAdapter.getView() OR else you can forego this altogether by simply setting android:background="@drawable/your_list_entry_selector" on the outermost element of res/layout/your_list_entry_layout.xml.

[Rohit Walavalkar]

@Nick Wiggill Thanks for the comment . helped a lot

[suitianshi]

the background is still in blue even if my finger leaves screen

[Zapnologica]

wouldn't mind example of the code that goes into list_selector_read.xml

[Mohammad Zekrallah]

this is not answering the question asked .. he wants to maintain list selector with a different background color for some rows .. your answer will remove list selector style !

[OWADVL]

@MohammadZekrallah I guess I'm a naughty boy that will not receive any gifts for Christmas

[Sathish Kumar J]

works nicely. but after using this code list_seletor effect gone. ie. after using this code , when i click the list_item it's not giving clicking effect

[Victor Lee]

Though it doesn't answer the specific question, served a purpose in my app. Thanks.

[sonichy]

Great solution！

[MandisaW]

@Zapnologica It's a standard Color State List resource. You can always check the Android source repo online and look at their style resources for insight.

[MandisaW]

Correction: A State List Drawable resource is needed here, not a Color State List.