Android ListView : default text when no items

Question

I've a ListView that can have 0 custom items inside (like "My Downloads").

Is there anyway to show a default text "No download yet" ?

Thanks !

EDIT : here is my solution,

TextView emptyView = new TextView(getApplicationContext());
emptyView.setLayoutParams(new LayoutParams(LayoutParams.FILL_PARENT, LayoutParams.FILL_PARENT));
emptyView.setTextColor(R.color.black);
emptyView.setText(R.string.no_purchased_item);
emptyView.setTextSize(20);
emptyView.setVisibility(View.GONE);
emptyView.setGravity(Gravity.CENTER_VERTICAL | Gravity.CENTER_HORIZONTAL);

((ViewGroup)getListView().getParent()).addView(emptyView);
getListView().setEmptyView(emptyView);

alt text

@medonja because setEmptyView(emptyView) method doesn't work properly if you don't add the emptyView to the view hierarchy first but doing so the emptyView would be always visible. So you have to make it GONE and this works well since what setEmptyView() does is just changing the emptyView's visibility according to the empty state of the list. — tomalf2
– tomalf2, Commented Jan 1, 2017 at 21:00

Alex Orlov · Accepted Answer · 2010-11-03 15:35:08Z

37

public void setEmptyView (View emptyView)

Since: API Level 1
Sets the view to show if the adapter is empty

Called on your ListView instance.

E.g. mListView.setEmptyView(someView);

You can build view on the fly, or inflate one from the xml.

answered Nov 3, 2010 at 15:35

Alex Orlov

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DustinB · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-04 21:51:19Z

16

Unless I misread your question, you can also just specify any view element with an ID of "@android:id/empty" in your layout and it will be taken care automatically for you. For example:

<ListView android:id="@android:id/list" android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:visibility="visible"/>

<LinearLayout android:id="@android:id/empty"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:gravity="center">

    <TextView android:text="@string/no_messages"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        style="@style/textBoldLight">
    </TextView>

</LinearLayout>

answered May 4, 2011 at 21:51

DustinB

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2 Comments

Dhruvenkumar Shah Over a year ago

i did not think of giving id of empty to linear layout to center "no items found" good thinking.

Derek W Over a year ago

This will only work for ListActivity. You will need to use Alex's approach for other Activity classes.

Barmaley · Accepted Answer · 2010-11-03 18:34:06Z

1

There's another approach BaseAdapter has method isEnabled(). You need to create you own adapter which will return for certain elements isEnabled(int position) as false. In this case those element will be unselectable. It's easy to modify it in a way that when list empty just add one disabled element.

But for sure method described above by Alex Orlov is better

answered Nov 3, 2010 at 18:34

Barmaley

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Comments

Alex · Accepted Answer · 2015-06-08 12:02:03Z

If you're using Activity instead of ListActivity and want to set the gravity of the empty to center (both horizontally and vertically), you should use these:

In your layout:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
              android:layout_width="match_parent"
              android:layout_height="match_parent"
              android:orientation="vertical">

    <ListView
        android:id="@+id/contacts"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"/>

    <LinearLayout
        android:id="@android:id/empty"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:gravity="center">

        <TextView
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:text="@string/no_contacts_add_one">
        </TextView>

    </LinearLayout>


</LinearLayout>

In your activity:

ListView contacts = (ListView) view.findViewById(R.id.contacts);
contacts.setEmptyView(view.findViewById(android.R.id.empty));

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