[java] Android ListView headers

Here is a sample project, based on antew's detailed and helpful answer, that implements a ListView with multiple headers that incorporates view holders to improve scrolling performance.

In this project, the objects represented in the ListView are instances of either the class HeaderItem or the class RowItem, both of which are subclasses of the abstract class Item. Each subclass of Item corresponds to a different view type in the custom adapter, ItemAdapter. The method getView() on ItemAdapter delegates the creation of the view for each list item to an individualized getView() method on either HeaderItem or RowItem, depending on the Item subclass used at the position passed to the getView() method on the adapter. Each Item subclass provides its own view holder.

The view holders are implemented as follows. The getView() methods on the Item subclasses check whether the View object that was passed to the getView() method on ItemAdapter is null. If so, the appropriate layout is inflated, and a view holder object is instantiated and associated with the inflated view via View.setTag(). If the View object is not null, then a view holder object was already associated with the view, and the view holder is retrieved via View.getTag(). The way in which the view holders are used can be seen in the following code snippet from HeaderItem:

@Override
View getView(LayoutInflater i, View v) {
    ViewHolder h;
    if (v == null) {
        v = i.inflate(R.layout.header, null);
        h = new ViewHolder(v);
        v.setTag(h);
    } else {
        h = (ViewHolder) v.getTag();
    }
    h.category.setText(text());
    return v;
}

private class ViewHolder {
    final TextView category;

    ViewHolder(View v) {
        category = v.findViewById(R.id.category);
    }
}

The complete implementation of the ListView follows. Here is the Java code:

import android.app.ListActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.view.LayoutInflater;
import android.view.View;
import android.view.ViewGroup;
import android.widget.ArrayAdapter;
import android.widget.TextView;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Set;

public class MainActivity extends ListActivity {
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setListAdapter(new ItemAdapter(getItems()));
    }

    class ItemAdapter extends ArrayAdapter<Item> {
        final private List<Class<?>> viewTypes;

        ItemAdapter(List<Item> items) {
            super(MainActivity.this, 0, items);
            if (items.contains(null))
                throw new IllegalArgumentException("null item");
            viewTypes = getViewTypes(items);
        }

        private List<Class<?>> getViewTypes(List<Item> items) {
            Set<Class<?>> set = new HashSet<>();
            for (Item i : items) 
                set.add(i.getClass());
            List<Class<?>> list = new ArrayList<>(set);
            return Collections.unmodifiableList(list);
        }

        @Override
        public int getViewTypeCount() {
            return viewTypes.size();
        }

        @Override
        public int getItemViewType(int position) {
            Item t = getItem(position);
            return viewTypes.indexOf(t.getClass());
        }

        @Override
        public View getView(int position, View v, ViewGroup unused) {
            return getItem(position).getView(getLayoutInflater(), v);
        }
    }

    abstract private class Item {
        final private String text;

        Item(String text) {
            this.text = text;
        }

        String text() { return text; }

        abstract View getView(LayoutInflater i, View v);
    }

    private class HeaderItem extends Item {
        HeaderItem(String text) {
            super(text);
        }

        @Override
        View getView(LayoutInflater i, View v) {
            ViewHolder h;
            if (v == null) {
                v = i.inflate(R.layout.header, null);
                h = new ViewHolder(v);
                v.setTag(h);
            } else {
                h = (ViewHolder) v.getTag();
            }
            h.category.setText(text());
            return v;
        }

        private class ViewHolder {
            final TextView category;

            ViewHolder(View v) {
                category = v.findViewById(R.id.category);
            }
        }
    }

    private class RowItem extends Item {
        RowItem(String text) {
            super(text);
        }

        @Override
        View getView(LayoutInflater i, View v) {
            ViewHolder h;
            if (v == null) {
                v = i.inflate(R.layout.row, null);
                h = new ViewHolder(v);
                v.setTag(h);
            } else {
                h = (ViewHolder) v.getTag();
            }
            h.option.setText(text());
            return v;
        }

        private class ViewHolder {
            final TextView option;

            ViewHolder(View v) {
                option = v.findViewById(R.id.option);
            }
        }
    }

    private List<Item> getItems() {
        List<Item> t = new ArrayList<>();
        t.add(new HeaderItem("Header 1"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 2"));
        t.add(new HeaderItem("Header 3"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 4"));

        t.add(new HeaderItem("Header 5"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 6"));
        t.add(new HeaderItem("Header 7"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 8"));

        t.add(new HeaderItem("Header 9"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 10"));
        t.add(new HeaderItem("Header 11"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 12"));

        t.add(new HeaderItem("Header 13"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 14"));
        t.add(new HeaderItem("Header 15"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 16"));

        t.add(new HeaderItem("Header 17"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 18"));
        t.add(new HeaderItem("Header 19"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 20"));

        t.add(new HeaderItem("Header 21"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 22"));
        t.add(new HeaderItem("Header 23"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 24"));

        t.add(new HeaderItem("Header 25"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 26"));
        t.add(new HeaderItem("Header 27"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 28"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 29"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 30"));

        t.add(new HeaderItem("Header 31"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 32"));
        t.add(new HeaderItem("Header 33"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 34"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 35"));
        t.add(new RowItem("Row 36"));

        return t;
    }

}

There are also two list item layouts, one for each Item subclass. Here is the layout header, used by HeaderItem:

<?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="wrap_content"
    android:background="#FFAAAAAA"
    >
    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/category"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_margin="4dp"
        android:textColor="#FF000000"
        android:textSize="20sp"
        android:textStyle="bold"
        />
 </LinearLayout>

And here is the layout row, used by RowItem:

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:minHeight="?android:attr/listPreferredItemHeight"
    >
    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/option"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:textSize="15sp"
        />
</LinearLayout>

Here is an image of a portion of the resulting ListView: