Equivalent of ListView.setEmptyView in RecyclerView

Question

In RecyclerView, I want to set an empty view to be shown when the adapter is empty. Is there an equivalent of ListView.setEmptyView()?

Answer 1

Try RVEmptyObserver:

It's an implementation of an AdapterDataObserver that allows you to simply set a View as the default empty layout for your RecylerView. This way, instead of using a custom RecyclerView and making your life harder, you can easily use it with your existing code:

---

Example Usage:

RVEmptyObserver observer = new RVEmptyObserver(recyclerView, emptyView)
rvAdapter.registerAdapterDataObserver(observer);

You can see the code and example usage in an actual app here.

---

Class:

public class RVEmptyObserver extends RecyclerView.AdapterDataObserver {
    private View emptyView;
    private RecyclerView recyclerView;

    public RVEmptyObserver(RecyclerView rv, View ev) {
        this.recyclerView = rv;
        this.emptyView    = ev;
        checkIfEmpty();
    }

    private void checkIfEmpty() {
        if (emptyView != null && recyclerView.getAdapter() != null) {
            boolean emptyViewVisible = recyclerView.getAdapter().getItemCount() == 0;
            emptyView.setVisibility(emptyViewVisible ? View.VISIBLE : View.GONE);
            recyclerView.setVisibility(emptyViewVisible ? View.GONE : View.VISIBLE);
        }
    }

    public void onChanged() { checkIfEmpty(); }
    public void onItemRangeInserted(int positionStart, int itemCount) { checkIfEmpty(); }
    public void onItemRangeRemoved(int positionStart, int itemCount) { checkIfEmpty(); }
}

Answer 2

I would prefer to implement this functionality in Recycler.Adapter

On your overridden getItemCount method, inject empty check codes there:

@Override
public int getItemCount() {
    if(data.size() == 0) listIsEmtpy();
    return data.size();
}

Answer 3

Solution provided in this link seems perfect. It uses viewType to identify when to show emptyView. No need to create custom RecyclerView

Adding code from the above link:

package com.example.androidsampleproject;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import android.app.Activity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.support.v7.widget.LinearLayoutManager;
import android.support.v7.widget.RecyclerView;
import android.view.LayoutInflater;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;
import android.widget.TextView;

public class RecyclerViewActivity extends Activity {

RecyclerView recyclerView;

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_recycler_view);
    recyclerView = (RecyclerView) findViewById(R.id.myList);
    recyclerView.setLayoutManager(new LinearLayoutManager(this));
    recyclerView.setAdapter(new MyAdapter());
}


private class MyAdapter extends RecyclerView.Adapter<RecyclerView.ViewHolder> {
    private List<String> dataList = new ArrayList<String>();

    public class EmptyViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder {
        public EmptyViewHolder(View itemView) {
            super(itemView);
        }
    }

    public class ViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder {
        TextView data;

        public ViewHolder(View v) {
            super(v);
            data = (TextView) v.findViewById(R.id.data_view);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public int getItemCount() {
        return dataList.size() > 0 ? dataList.size() : 1;
    }

    @Override
    public int getItemViewType(int position) {
        if (dataList.size() == 0) {
            return EMPTY_VIEW;
        }
        return super.getItemViewType(position);
    }


    @Override
    public void onBindViewHolder(RecyclerView.ViewHolder vho, final int pos) {
        if (vho instanceof ViewHolder) {
            ViewHolder vh = (ViewHolder) vho;
            String pi = dataList.get(pos);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public RecyclerView.ViewHolder onCreateViewHolder(ViewGroup parent, int viewType) {
        View v;

        if (viewType == EMPTY_VIEW) {
            v = LayoutInflater.from(parent.getContext()).inflate(R.layout.empty_view, parent, false);
            EmptyViewHolder evh = new EmptyViewHolder(v);
            return evh;
        }

        v = LayoutInflater.from(parent.getContext()).inflate(R.layout.data_row, parent, false);
        ViewHolder vh = new ViewHolder(v);
        return vh;
    }

    private static final int EMPTY_VIEW = 10;
}

}

Answer 4

With the new data binding feature you can also achieve this in your layout directly:

<TextView
   android:text="No data to display."
   android:visibility="@{dataset.size() > 0 ? View.GONE : View.VISIBLE}" />

In that case you just need to add a variable and an import to the data section of your XML:

<data>
<import type="android.view.View"/>
<variable
    name="dataset"
    type="java.util.List&lt;java.lang.String&gt;"
    />
</data>

Answer 5

I would simply prefer a simple solution like,

have your RecyclerView inside a FrameLayout or RelativeLayout with a TextView or other view with showing empty data message with visibility GONE by default and then in the adapter class, apply the logic

Here, I have one TextView with message no data

@Override
public int getItemCount() {
    textViewNoData.setVisibility(data.size() > 0 ? View.GONE : View.VISIBLE);
    return data.size();
}

Answer 6

If you want to support more states such as loading state, error state then you can checkout https://github.com/rockerhieu/rv-adapter-states. Otherwise supporting empty view can be implemented easily using RecyclerViewAdapterWrapper from (https://github.com/rockerhieu/rv-adapter). The main advantage of this approach is you can easily support empty view without changing the logic of the existing adapter:

public class StatesRecyclerViewAdapter extends RecyclerViewAdapterWrapper {
    private final View vEmptyView;

    @IntDef({STATE_NORMAL, STATE_EMPTY})
    @Retention(RetentionPolicy.SOURCE)
    public @interface State {
    }

    public static final int STATE_NORMAL = 0;
    public static final int STATE_EMPTY = 2;

    public static final int TYPE_EMPTY = 1001;

    @State
    private int state = STATE_NORMAL;

    public StatesRecyclerViewAdapter(@NonNull RecyclerView.Adapter wrapped, @Nullable View emptyView) {
        super(wrapped);
        this.vEmptyView = emptyView;
    }

    @State
    public int getState() {
        return state;
    }

    public void setState(@State int state) {
        this.state = state;
        getWrappedAdapter().notifyDataSetChanged();
        notifyDataSetChanged();
    }

    @Override
    public int getItemCount() {
        switch (state) {
            case STATE_EMPTY:
                return 1;
        }
        return super.getItemCount();
    }

    @Override
    public int getItemViewType(int position) {
        switch (state) {
            case STATE_EMPTY:
                return TYPE_EMPTY;
        }
        return super.getItemViewType(position);
    }

    @Override
    public RecyclerView.ViewHolder onCreateViewHolder(ViewGroup parent, int viewType) {
        switch (viewType) {
            case TYPE_EMPTY:
                return new SimpleViewHolder(vEmptyView);
        }
        return super.onCreateViewHolder(parent, viewType);
    }

    @Override
    public void onBindViewHolder(RecyclerView.ViewHolder holder, int position) {
        switch (state) {
            case STATE_EMPTY:
                onBindEmptyViewHolder(holder, position);
                break;
            default:
                super.onBindViewHolder(holder, position);
                break;
        }
    }

    public void onBindEmptyViewHolder(RecyclerView.ViewHolder holder, int position) {
    }

    public static class SimpleViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder {
        public SimpleViewHolder(View itemView) {
            super(itemView);
        }
    }
}

Usage:

Adapter adapter = originalAdapter();
StatesRecyclerViewAdapter statesRecyclerViewAdapter = new StatesRecyclerViewAdapter(adapter, emptyView);
rv.setAdapter(endlessRecyclerViewAdapter);

// Change the states of the adapter
statesRecyclerViewAdapter.setState(StatesRecyclerViewAdapter.STATE_EMPTY);
statesRecyclerViewAdapter.setState(StatesRecyclerViewAdapter.STATE_NORMAL);