How to show date in between conversation in recyclerview or in listview

Question

How to show date or today , yesterday like text in between conversation

like whatsapp

Answer 1

You just have to compare the date when scrolling and set the visibility of date view. The advantage of this is there's no hard-coded today/yesterday in data list and is able to refresh the correct date immediately (scrolling) after 12.00 a.m.

e.g. in your onBindViewHolder() in recycleview:

        if (position != 0) {
            processDate(holder.topDateTextView, myData.getDate()
                    , this.myDataList.get(position - 1).getDate()
                    , false)
            ;
        } else {
            processDate(holder.topDateTextView, data.getDay()
                    , null
                    , true)
            ;
        }

Method to process that date view (Assume your list has format "dd/MM/yyyy"):

   private void processDate(@NonNull TextView tv, String dateAPIStr
        , String dateAPICompareStr
        , boolean isFirstItem) {

    SimpleDateFormat f = new SimpleDateFormat("dd/MM/yyyy");
    if (isFirstItem) {
        //first item always got date/today to shows
        //and overkill to compare with next item flow
        Date dateFromAPI = null;
        try {
            dateFromAPI = f.parse(dateAPIStr);
            if (DateUtils.isToday(dateFromAPI.getTime())) tv.setText("today");
            else if (DateUtils.isToday(dateFromAPI.getTime() + DateUtils.DAY_IN_MILLIS)) tv.setText("yesterday");
            else tv.setText(dateAPIStr);
            tv.setIncludeFontPadding(false);
            tv.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
        } catch (ParseException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
            tv.setVisibility(View.GONE);
        }
    } else {
        if (!dateAPIStr.equalsIgnoreCase(dateAPICompareStr)) {
            try {
                Date dateFromAPI = f.parse(dateAPIStr);
                if (DateUtils.isToday(dateFromAPI.getTime())) tv.setText("today");
                else if (DateUtils.isToday(dateFromAPI.getTime() + DateUtils.DAY_IN_MILLIS)) tv.setText("yesterday");
                else tv.setText(dateAPIStr);
                tv.setIncludeFontPadding(false);
                tv.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
            } catch (ParseException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
                tv.setVisibility(View.GONE);
            }
        } else {
            tv.setVisibility(View.GONE);
        }
    }
}

Note: You also need to do yourAdapter.notifyDataSetChanged(); if append new item to redraw to dismiss previous "today"/date after 12.00 a.m on the same page, not just rely on yourAdapter.notifyItemInserted(new_item_position) which doesn't redraw previous items.