Using the List View in Android

Android provides the list view as a standard view to display the group of scrollable items. The list view is bounded with an Adapter which provides an array of items or database query to populate the list view.


The standard way to list the data in list view is to use the cursor loader which provides an asynchronous method to load the list view from query object.


See the example below using the list view bounded with simple cursor adapter which reads the contacts data. (You can use the list view using cursor loader in android 3.0 and with backward support with 1.6)


(Note : add the following permission to android manifest file


<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.READ_CONTACTS" /> )

public class ListViewExample extends ListActivity
        implements LoaderManager.LoaderCallbacks<Cursor> {

    // Create the Simple Adapter Object
    SimpleCursorAdapter mAdapter;

    // These are the Contacts rows that we will retrieve
    static final String[] DataObj = new String[] {ContactsContract.Data._ID,
            ContactsContract.Data.DISPLAY_NAME};

    // This is the select criteria
    static final String Query = "((" + 
            ContactsContract.Data.DISPLAY_NAME + " NOTNULL) AND (" +
            ContactsContract.Data.DISPLAY_NAME + " != '' ))";

    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

        // Create a progress bar to display while the list loads
        ProgressBar progressBar = new ProgressBar(this);
        progressBar.setLayoutParams(new LayoutParams(LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT,
                LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, Gravity.CENTER));
        progressBar.setIndeterminate(true);
        getListView().setEmptyView(progressBar);

        // Must add the progress bar to the root of the layout
        ViewGroup root = (ViewGroup) findViewById(android.R.id.content);
        root.addView(progressBar);

        // For the cursor adapter, specify which columns go into which views
        String[] fromColumns = {ContactsContract.Data.DISPLAY_NAME};
        int[] toViews = {android.R.id.text1}; // The TextView in simple_list_item_1

        // Create an empty adapter we will use to display the loaded data.
        // We pass null for the cursor, then update it in onLoadFinished()
        mAdapter = new SimpleCursorAdapter(this, 
                android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1, null,
                fromColumns, toViews, 0);
        setListAdapter(mAdapter);

        // Prepare the loader.  Either re-connect with an existing one,
        // or start a new one.
        getLoaderManager().initLoader(0, null, this);
    }

    // Called when a new Loader needs to be created
    public Loader<Cursor> onCreateLoader(int id, Bundle args) {
        // Now create and return a CursorLoader that will take care of
        // creating a Cursor for the data being displayed.
        return new CursorLoader(this, ContactsContract.Data.CONTENT_URI,
                DataObj, Query, null, null);
    }

    // Called when a previously created loader has finished loading
    public void onLoadFinished(Loader<Cursor> loader, Cursor data) {
        // Swap the new cursor in.  (The framework will take care of closing the
        // old cursor once we return.)
        mAdapter.swapCursor(data);
    }

    // Called when a previously created loader is reset, making the data unavailable
    public void onLoaderReset(Loader<Cursor> loader) {
        // This is called when the last Cursor provided to onLoadFinished()
        // above is about to be closed.  We need to make sure we are no
        // longer using it.
        mAdapter.swapCursor(null);
    }

    @Override 
    public void onListItemClick(ListView l, View v, int position, long id) {
        // Do something when a list item is clicked
    }
}