Detect click on RecyclerView outside of items

Question

I have a RecyclerView with 2 items that don\'t fill the whole screen. How can I detect that the user clicked on the empty part of the RecyclerView (meaning clicked directly on t

Answer 1

@driss-bounouar's answer is almost right although this will prevent the user from scrolling the recycler view as any down event will cause your action to happen. With a slight modification where we record the down event and then check on the up event if the coordinates have not changed much, then fire the event.

private MotionEvent lastRecyclerViewDownTouchEvent;
myRecyclerView.setOnTouchListener(new View.OnTouchListener() {
                    @Override
                    public boolean onTouch(View v, MotionEvent event) {
                        if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_DOWN && myRecyclerView.findChildViewUnder(event.getX(), event.getY()) == null) {
                            lastRecyclerViewDownTouchEvent = event;
                        } else if (event.getAction() == MotionEvent.ACTION_UP && myRecyclerView.findChildViewUnder(event.getX(), event.getY()) == null
                                && lastRecyclerViewDownTouchEvent != null) {
                            // Check to see if it was a tap or a swipe
                            float xDelta = Math.abs(lastRecyclerViewDownTouchEvent.getX() - event.getX());
                            float yDelta = Math.abs(lastRecyclerViewDownTouchEvent.getY() - event.getY());
                            if (xDelta < 30 && yDelta < 30) {
                                // Do action
                            }
                            lastRecyclerViewDownTouchEvent = null;
                        }
                        return false;
                    }
                });