How to add dividers and spaces between items in RecyclerView?

Question

This is an example of how it could have been done previously in the ListView class, using the divider and dividerHeight parame

Answer 1

The way how I'm handling the Divider view and also Divider Insets is by adding a RecyclerView extension.

1.

Add a new extension file by naming View or RecyclerView:

RecyclerViewExtension.kt

and add the setDivider extension method inside the RecyclerViewExtension.kt file.

/*
* RecyclerViewExtension.kt
* */
import androidx.annotation.DrawableRes
import androidx.core.content.ContextCompat
import androidx.recyclerview.widget.DividerItemDecoration
import androidx.recyclerview.widget.RecyclerView


fun RecyclerView.setDivider(@DrawableRes drawableRes: Int) {
    val divider = DividerItemDecoration(
        this.context,
        DividerItemDecoration.VERTICAL
    )
    val drawable = ContextCompat.getDrawable(
        this.context,
        drawableRes
    )
    drawable?.let {
        divider.setDrawable(it)
        addItemDecoration(divider)
    }
}

2.

Create a Drawable resource file inside of drawable package like recycler_view_divider.xml:

where you can specify the left and right margin on android:insetLeft and android:insetRight.

3.

On your Activity or Fragment where the RecyclerView is initialized, you can set the custom drawable by calling:

recyclerView.setDivider(R.drawable.recycler_view_divider)

4.

Cheers