Grid View

GridView is a ViewGroup that displays items in a two-dimensional, scrollable grid. The grid items are automatically inserted to the layout using a ListAdapter.

For an introduction to how you can dynamically insert views using an adapter, read Building Layouts with an Adapter.

Example

In this tutorial, you'll create a grid of image thumbnails. When an item is selected, a toast message will display the position of the image.

1. Start a new project named HelloGridView.
2. Find some photos you'd like to use, or download these sample images. Save the image files into the project's res/drawable/ directory.
3. Open the res/layout/main.xml file and insert the following:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
   <GridView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" 
       android:id="@+id/gridview"
       android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
       android:layout_height="fill_parent"
       android:columnWidth="90dp"
       android:numColumns="auto_fit"
       android:verticalSpacing="10dp"
       android:horizontalSpacing="10dp"
       android:stretchMode="columnWidth"
       android:gravity="center"
   />
   

   This GridView will fill the entire screen. The attributes are rather self explanatory. For more information about valid attributes, see the GridView reference.

4. Open HelloGridView.java and insert the following code for the onCreate() method:

   public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
       super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
       setContentView(R.layout.main);
   
       GridView gridview = (GridView) findViewById(R.id.gridview);
       gridview.setAdapter(new ImageAdapter(this));
   
       gridview.setOnItemClickListener(new OnItemClickListener() {
           public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> parent, View v, int position, long id) {
               Toast.makeText(HelloGridView.this, "" + position, Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();
           }
       });
   }
   

   After the main.xml layout is set for the content view, the GridView is captured from the layout with findViewById(int). The setAdapter() method then sets a custom adapter (ImageAdapter) as the source for all items to be displayed in the grid. The ImageAdapter is created in the next step.

   To do something when an item in the grid is clicked, the setOnItemClickListener() method is passed a new AdapterView.OnItemClickListener. This anonymous instance defines the onItemClick() callback method to show a Toast that displays the index position (zero-based) of the selected item (in a real world scenario, the position could be used to get the full sized image for some other task).

5. Create a new class called ImageAdapter that extends BaseAdapter:

   public class ImageAdapter extends BaseAdapter {
       private Context mContext;
   
       public ImageAdapter(Context c) {
           mContext = c;
       }
   
       public int getCount() {
           return mThumbIds.length;
       }
   
       public Object getItem(int position) {
           return null;
       }
   
       public long getItemId(int position) {
           return 0;
       }
   
       // create a new ImageView for each item referenced by the Adapter
       public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
           ImageView imageView;
           if (convertView == null) {  // if it's not recycled, initialize some attributes
               imageView = new ImageView(mContext);
               imageView.setLayoutParams(new GridView.LayoutParams(85, 85));
               imageView.setScaleType(ImageView.ScaleType.CENTER_CROP);
               imageView.setPadding(8, 8, 8, 8);
           } else {
               imageView = (ImageView) convertView;
           }
   
           imageView.setImageResource(mThumbIds[position]);
           return imageView;
       }
   
       // references to our images
       private Integer[] mThumbIds = {
               R.drawable.sample_2, R.drawable.sample_3,
               R.drawable.sample_4, R.drawable.sample_5,
               R.drawable.sample_6, R.drawable.sample_7,
               R.drawable.sample_0, R.drawable.sample_1,
               R.drawable.sample_2, R.drawable.sample_3,
               R.drawable.sample_4, R.drawable.sample_5,
               R.drawable.sample_6, R.drawable.sample_7,
               R.drawable.sample_0, R.drawable.sample_1,
               R.drawable.sample_2, R.drawable.sample_3,
               R.drawable.sample_4, R.drawable.sample_5,
               R.drawable.sample_6, R.drawable.sample_7
       };
   }
   

   First, this implements some required methods inherited from BaseAdapter. The constructor and getCount() are self-explanatory. Normally, getItem(int) should return the actual object at the specified position in the adapter, but it's ignored for this example. Likewise, getItemId(int) should return the row id of the item, but it's not needed here.

   The first method necessary is getView(). This method creates a new View for each image added to the ImageAdapter. When this is called, a View is passed in, which is normally a recycled object (at least after this has been called once), so there's a check to see if the object is null. If it is null, an ImageView is instantiated and configured with desired properties for the image presentation:

   • setLayoutParams(ViewGroup.LayoutParams) sets the height and width for the View—this ensures that, no matter the size of the drawable, each image is resized and cropped to fit in these dimensions, as appropriate.
   • setScaleType(ImageView.ScaleType) declares that images should be cropped toward the center (if necessary).
   • setPadding(int, int, int, int) defines the padding for all sides. (Note that, if the images have different aspect-ratios, then less padding will cause more cropping of the image if it does not match the dimensions given to the ImageView.)

   If the View passed to getView() is not null, then the local ImageView is initialized with the recycled View object.

   At the end of the getView() method, the position integer passed into the method is used to select an image from the mThumbIds array, which is set as the image resource for the ImageView.

   All that's left is to define the mThumbIds array of drawable resources.

6. Run the application.

Try experimenting with the behaviors of the GridView and ImageView elements by adjusting their properties. For example, instead of using setLayoutParams(ViewGroup.LayoutParams), try using setAdjustViewBounds(boolean).