Android ListActivity Example - How to display Tabular Data

Displaying data in a List is essential to any application whether its Mobile, Desktop or even back-end enterprise application. ListActivity lets you create a List without specifying a Layout as it already hosts a ListView object that can be bound to a data source such as an array or a database Cursor. In this example we are displaying data from an ArrayList and listening to the OnItemClickListener so that we can capture a click event if the user touches a specific row in the List.

Source for Activity - AndroidListViewActivity.java

package com.as400samplecode;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

import android.app.ListActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.widget.AdapterView;
import android.widget.AdapterView.OnItemClickListener;
import android.widget.ArrayAdapter;
import android.widget.ListView;
import android.widget.TextView;
import android.widget.Toast;
import android.view.Gravity;
import android.view.View;

public class AndroidListViewActivity extends ListActivity {

 @Override
 public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
  super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

  //Generate list View from ArrayList
  displayListView();

 }

 private void displayListView() {

  //Array list of countries
  List<String> countryList = new ArrayList<String>();
  countryList.add("Aruba");
  countryList.add("Anguilla");
  countryList.add("Netherlands Antilles");
  countryList.add("Antigua and Barbuda");
  countryList.add("Bahamas");
  countryList.add("Belize");
  countryList.add("Bermuda");
  countryList.add("Barbados");
  countryList.add("Canada");
  countryList.add("Costa Rica");
  countryList.add("Cuba");
  countryList.add("Cayman Islands");
  countryList.add("Dominica");
  countryList.add("Dominican Republic");
  countryList.add("Guadeloupe");
  countryList.add("Grenada");
  countryList.add("Greenland");
  countryList.add("Guatemala");
  countryList.add("Honduras");
  countryList.add("Haiti");
  countryList.add("Jamaica");

  //create an ArrayAdaptar from the String Array
  ArrayAdapter<String> dataAdapter = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this,
    R.layout.country_list, countryList);
  setListAdapter(dataAdapter);

  ListView listView = getListView();
  //enables filtering for the contents of the given ListView
  listView.setTextFilterEnabled(true);

  listView.setOnItemClickListener(new OnItemClickListener() {
   public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> parent, View view,
     int position, long id) {
    // When clicked, show a toast with the TextView text
    Toast toast = Toast.makeText(getApplicationContext(),
      ((TextView) view).getText(), Toast.LENGTH_LONG);
    toast.setGravity(Gravity.TOP, 25, 300); 
    toast.show();
   }
  });

 }
}

Source for List Layout - country_list.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<TextView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:padding="10dp"
    android:textSize="16sp" >
</TextView>

Source for application variables - strings.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>

    <string name="hello">Hello World, AndroidListViewActivity!</string>
    <string name="app_name">AndroidListView</string>

</resources>

Source for application manifest - AndroidManifest.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
 package="com.as400samplecode" android:versionCode="1"
 android:versionName="1.0">

 <uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="15" />

 <application android:icon="@drawable/ic_launcher"
  android:label="@string/app_name" android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Light">
  <activity android:name=".AndroidListViewActivity"
   android:label="@string/app_name">
   <intent-filter>
    <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN" />

    <category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER" />
   </intent-filter>
  </activity>
 </application>

</manifest>

References

• Android ListActivity API Doc
• Android ArrayAdapter API Doc