Use ItemTouchHelper for Swipe-To-Dismiss with another View displayed behind the swiped out

Question

I have a RecyclerView and want to allow my users to use a swipe gesture to remove items from the list. But as known from other apps (e.g. Gmail), I want to show a delete icon be

Answer 1

use the onChildDraw() method from ItemTouchHelper - I have it working with a bitmap and coloured background for swiping left and right with different colors and icons:

        @Override
        public void onChildDraw(Canvas c, RecyclerView recyclerView, RecyclerView.ViewHolder viewHolder, float dX, float dY, int actionState, boolean isCurrentlyActive) {

            if (actionState == ItemTouchHelper.ACTION_STATE_SWIPE) {

                View itemView = viewHolder.itemView;

                Paint paint = new Paint();
                Bitmap bitmap;

                if (dX > 0) { // swiping right
                    paint.setColor(getResources().getColor(R.color.child_view_complete));
                    bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getApplicationContext().getResources(), R.mipmap.ic_circle_complete);
                    float height = (itemView.getHeight() / 2) - (bitmap.getHeight() / 2);

                    c.drawRect((float) itemView.getLeft(), (float) itemView.getTop(), dX, (float) itemView.getBottom(), paint);
                    c.drawBitmap(bitmap, 96f, (float) itemView.getTop() + height, null);

                } else { // swiping left
                    paint.setColor(getResources().getColor(R.color.primaryColorAccent));
                    bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeResource(getApplicationContext().getResources(), R.mipmap.ic_circle_bin);
                    float height = (itemView.getHeight() / 2) - (bitmap.getHeight() / 2);
                    float bitmapWidth = bitmap.getWidth();

                    c.drawRect((float) itemView.getRight() + dX, (float) itemView.getTop(), (float) itemView.getRight(), (float) itemView.getBottom(), paint);
                    c.drawBitmap(bitmap, ((float) itemView.getRight() - bitmapWidth) - 96f, (float) itemView.getTop() + height, null);
                }

                super.onChildDraw(c, recyclerView, viewHolder, dX, dY, actionState, isCurrentlyActive);


            }
        }

96f can be replaced with whatever distance from the left/right side you'd like it to be. This isn't perfect as when I'm down to 2 items in the adapter and I remove a position the canvas does not disappear and remains until the adapter is set again - working on trying to resolve now - I'll update if I find a complete solution but for now this is what I think you're looking for.