Display a RecyclerView in Fragment

Question

I'm trying out the new RecyclerView in Android Lollipop and I'm stuck.

I'm trying to receive a list, with an icon and a TextView to the right of the icon, inside a Fragment.

I found this great tutorial on how to set up a RecyclerView. I have followed every point and only changed the item_layout.xml to fit my needs.

The project builds without any errors but when it launches on my device I'm getting this error:

java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{com.fredrikaldgard.materialcolors/com.fredrikaldgard.materialcolors.MainActivity}: java.lang.NullPointerException: Attempt to invoke virtual method 'void android.support.v7.widget.RecyclerView.setLayoutManager(android.support.v7.widget.RecyclerView$LayoutManager)' on a null object reference

I've tried to google the problem but I'm quite an amateur with Android development.

Here's my MainActivity:

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

    // 1. get a reference to recyclerView
    RecyclerView recyclerView = (RecyclerView) findViewById(R.id.list);

    // 2. set layoutManger
    recyclerView.setLayoutManager(new LinearLayoutManager(this));

    // this is data fro recycler view
    ItemData itemsData[] = { new ItemData("Indigo",R.drawable.circle),
            new ItemData("Red",R.drawable.color_ic_launcher),
            new ItemData("Blue",R.drawable.indigo),
            new ItemData("Green",R.drawable.circle),
            new ItemData("Amber",R.drawable.color_ic_launcher),
            new ItemData("Deep Orange",R.drawable.indigo)};


    // 3. create an adapter
    MyAdapter mAdapter = new MyAdapter(itemsData);
    // 4. set adapter
    recyclerView.setAdapter(mAdapter);
    // 5. set item animator to DefaultAnimator
    recyclerView.setItemAnimator(new DefaultItemAnimator());

And my MyAdapter:

public class MyAdapter extends RecyclerView.Adapter<MyAdapter.ViewHolder> {
private ItemData[] itemsData;

public MyAdapter(ItemData[] itemsData) {
    this.itemsData = itemsData;
}

// Create new views (invoked by the layout manager)
@Override
public MyAdapter.ViewHolder onCreateViewHolder(ViewGroup parent,
                                               int viewType) {
    // create a new view
    View itemLayoutView = LayoutInflater.from(parent.getContext())
            .inflate(R.layout.item_layout, null);

    // create ViewHolder

    ViewHolder viewHolder = new ViewHolder(itemLayoutView);
    return viewHolder;
}

// Replace the contents of a view (invoked by the layout manager)
@Override
public void onBindViewHolder(ViewHolder viewHolder, int position) {

    // - get data from your itemsData at this position
    // - replace the contents of the view with that itemsData

    viewHolder.txtViewTitle.setText(itemsData[position].getTitle());
    viewHolder.imgViewIcon.setImageResource(itemsData[position].getImageUrl());


}

// inner class to hold a reference to each item of RecyclerView
public static class ViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder {

    public TextView txtViewTitle;
    public ImageView imgViewIcon;

    public ViewHolder(View itemLayoutView) {
        super(itemLayoutView);
        txtViewTitle = (TextView) itemLayoutView.findViewById(R.id.item_title);
        imgViewIcon = (ImageView) itemLayoutView.findViewById(R.id.item_icon);
    }
}


// Return the size of your itemsData (invoked by the layout manager)
@Override
public int getItemCount() {
    return itemsData.length;
}
}

Edit: Here's the Fragment

public class ColorsFragment extends Fragment {

    public ColorsFragment(){}

    @Override
    public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
                         Bundle savedInstanceState) {

        View rootView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_colors, container, false);

        return rootView;
    }
}

What has possibly gone wrong?

Solution 1

This was asked some time ago now, but based on the answer that @nacho_zona3 provided, and previous experience with fragments, the issue is that the views have not been created by the time you are trying to find them with the findViewById() method in onCreate() to fix this, move the following code:

// 1. get a reference to recyclerView
RecyclerView recyclerView = (RecyclerView) findViewById(R.id.list);

// 2. set layoutManger
recyclerView.setLayoutManager(new LinearLayoutManager(this));

// this is data from recycler view
ItemData itemsData[] = { new ItemData("Indigo",R.drawable.circle),
        new ItemData("Red",R.drawable.color_ic_launcher),
        new ItemData("Blue",R.drawable.indigo),
        new ItemData("Green",R.drawable.circle),
        new ItemData("Amber",R.drawable.color_ic_launcher),
        new ItemData("Deep Orange",R.drawable.indigo)};


// 3. create an adapter
MyAdapter mAdapter = new MyAdapter(itemsData);
// 4. set adapter
recyclerView.setAdapter(mAdapter);
// 5. set item animator to DefaultAnimator
recyclerView.setItemAnimator(new DefaultItemAnimator()); 

to your fragment's onCreateView() call. A small amount of refactoring is required because all variables and methods called from this method have to be static. The final code should look like:

 public class ColorsFragment extends Fragment {

     public ColorsFragment() {}

     @Override
     public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
         Bundle savedInstanceState) {

         View rootView = inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_colors, container, false);
         // 1. get a reference to recyclerView
         RecyclerView recyclerView = (RecyclerView) rootView.findViewById(R.id.list);

         // 2. set layoutManger
         recyclerView.setLayoutManager(new LinearLayoutManager(getActivity()));

         // this is data from recycler view
         ItemData itemsData[] = {
             new ItemData("Indigo", R.drawable.circle),
                 new ItemData("Red", R.drawable.color_ic_launcher),
                 new ItemData("Blue", R.drawable.indigo),
                 new ItemData("Green", R.drawable.circle),
                 new ItemData("Amber", R.drawable.color_ic_launcher),
                 new ItemData("Deep Orange", R.drawable.indigo)
         };


         // 3. create an adapter
         MyAdapter mAdapter = new MyAdapter(itemsData);
         // 4. set adapter
         recyclerView.setAdapter(mAdapter);
         // 5. set item animator to DefaultAnimator
         recyclerView.setItemAnimator(new DefaultItemAnimator());

         return rootView;
     }
 }

So the main thing here is that anywhere you call findViewById() you will need to use rootView.findViewById()

Solution 2

You should retrieve RecyclerView in a Fragment after inflating core View using that View. Perhaps it can't find your recycler because it's not part of Activity

@Override
public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
                             Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    final View view = inflater.inflate(R.layout.fragment_artist_tracks, container, false);
    final FragmentActivity c = getActivity();
    final RecyclerView recyclerView = (RecyclerView) view.findViewById(R.id.recyclerView);
    LinearLayoutManager layoutManager = new LinearLayoutManager(c);
    recyclerView.setLayoutManager(layoutManager);

    new Thread(new Runnable() {
        @Override
        public void run() {
            final RecyclerAdapter adapter = new RecyclerAdapter(c);
            c.runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
                @Override
                public void run() {
                    recyclerView.setAdapter(adapter);
                }
            });
        }
    }).start();

    return view;
}

Comments

[fredthemugwump]

Thanks a lot! I tried to replace my code inside my Fragment with yours but I got a problem with "final FragmentActivity c = getActivity();" It gives me an error: Required "android.support.v4.app.FragmentActitvity" Found "android.app.Activity". I have compiled the v4 support library in my project.

[user4182277]

You can use any activity, you don't have to use support library if don't need it

[fredthemugwump]

What do you mean by "use any activity"? I'm using the support library for a nav drawer anyway.

[user4182277]

I meant any subclass of activity class. Sorry for not making it clear.

[fredthemugwump]

I have to apologize, I'm not very good at complicated things like Fragments. What exactly should I write instead of "final FragmentActivity c = getActivity();"? When I replac FragmentActivity with just Activity the error disappears but I still have this error: imgur.com/amSWNWc

[Dionysios Arvanitis]

mLayoutManager = new LinearLayoutManager(getActivity());

[swapyonubuntu]

replace this with getActivity() .

[pcodex]

You could also return the recyclerview from the fragment 'onCreateView' because essentially the fragment is now a RecyclerView

[Pointyhat]

may i ask why you setting the adapter in a runnable?

[user4182277]

Adapter should be set on UI thread. Data is loaded on another thread and we can not interact with UI on non-ui thread. Please notice that using raw threads is usually bad practice. I think kotlin coroutines are new way to do so properly.

[Learn2Code]

Im getting an error with MyAdapter mAdapter = new MyAdapter(itemsData); it says MyAdapter(android.context.Context, List<>) in MyAdapter cannot be applied to (List<>)

[clamum]

Thanks bruh. I'm just getting back into native Android development, after creating my first app years ago targeting v2.3.3, and yeah... let's just say a thing or two has changed. OH LAWD