Showing the current selection in a listview

Question

As seen in the tablet version of gmail and google talk I am trying to show the current selection in a listview. I know this is not standard practice and should be avoided wh

Answer 1

Your other option is to set the background of your custom list item to android:background="?android:attr/activatedBackgroundIndicator"

Answer 2

What Gmail and similar apps use is the activated state, with an appropriate row layout. See:

• Setting Android Background & Persistence Menu Bar - Using attribute on older versions causes crash - Is there a theme /pattern approach?
• Change colour of activated list item background on Honeycomb

In a nutshell, you:

• Use a row layout with an activated background (e.g., android.R.layout.simple_list_item_activated_1)
• Use setChoiceMode(ListView.CHOICE_MODE_SINGLE) on your ListView
• "Check" the row that should be activated using setItemChecked() on your ListView to enable the "activated" state and have the persistent highlight

Answer 3

If you use a custom layout for each row:

1. create a selector with android:state_activated="true"
2. apply it as the background of the custom layout.

an example of the selector drawable:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
 android:exitFadeDuration="@android:integer/config_shortAnimTime">
<item android:state_activated="true" android:drawable="@color/android_green" />
<item android:drawable="@android:color/transparent" />
</selector>

Answer 4

What worked for me

1. override the global ListView Style in your theme

   <item name="android:listViewStyle">@style/MyListView</item>

2. define your style

   <style name="MyListView" parent="@android:style/Widget.ListView"> <item name="android:listSelector">@drawable/listview_background_selector</item> </style>

3. define the selector listview_background_selector.xml

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:enterFadeDuration="@android:integer/config_mediumAnimTime" android:exitFadeDuration="@android:integer/config_mediumAnimTime"> <item android:drawable="@color/ListViewBackGroundColorPressed" android:state_activated="true" /> </selector>

4. set the background of your listview-item-layout

   android:background="?android:attr/activatedBackgroundIndicator"