By default, Android provides simple divider between every row of a ListView. However, it is possible to customize the divider. You can apply your own custom shape, height, and color to the divider. In this Android tip, I am going to show how to achieve the goal.
Let’s add a ListView to the activity_main.xml file. There are two attributes of the ListView that make the divider work: android:divider and android: dividerHeight. The value of the divider attribute will be a custom drawable that defines the shape and color of the divider. You specify the height of the divider using android:dividerHeight attribute.





activity_main.xml file

<LinearLayout xmlns:android= "http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   xmlns:tools= "http://schemas.android.com/tools"
   android:layout_width="match_parent"
   android:layout_height="match_parent"
   android:orientation="horizontal"
   android:padding="10dp"
   tools:context=".MainActivity"
   android:background="@drawable/shadow"
  >
   <ListView
      android:id="@+id/listv"
      android:layout_width="match_parent"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:divider="@drawable/customdivider"
      android:dividerHeight="4dp"
      />
</LinearLayout>

tag and android:shape attribute. You use <solid> tag to define the color and <corners> tag to set color and corners radius of the shape.

customdivider.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<shape xmlns:android= "http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
   android:shape="rectangle">
   <solid
android:color="#ff6143b5"

      />


   <corners
      android:radius="2dp"
      />
</shape>

In the res/layout directory, you create a layout file called list_layout that defines row template of the ListView.

List_layout.xml file

<?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:orientation="vertical"
   >

   <TextView
      android:id="@+id/txtitem"
      android:layout_width="wrap_content"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content" />
</LinearLayout>

To display the ListView, in the onCreate() method of the MainActivity class, you write code as shown below.

String[] items={"Item1","Item2","Item3","item4","item5","item6","item7"};      

ListView listv=(ListView)findViewById(R.id.listv);

ArrayAdapter<String> adapter=new ArrayAdapter<String>(this,R.layout.list_layout,R.id.txtitem,items);      listv.setAdapter(adapter);

Posted by: Dara | post date: 05-05-2015 | Subject: Android Apps Development