---
title: "Endless List view Adapter in Android"  
description: "Hi everyone, here we are going to learn how to implement an endless list view adapter in Android"  
author: "Anonymous User"  
published: 2015-02-05  
updated: 2019-09-07  
canonical: https://www.mindstick.com/articles/1570/endless-list-view-adapter-in-android  
category: "android"  
tags: ["android", "android listview"]  
reading_time: 8 minutes  

---

# Endless List view Adapter in Android

In my last post,we learn about intents and how to start an activity from an activity : Start a new activity within an Activity in Android. Now here, we implement an endless list view

An endless adapter is an adapter that loads more data when user reaches the List View end. This kind of adapter is useful when there is a large number of items and we don’t want to show them all to avoid a long loading time.

We pretty much all know the nice [technique](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/102844/what-is-the-pomodoro-technique-and-does-it-work) apps like GMail / [Facebook](https://yourviews.mindstick.com/view/81069/meaning-of-facebook-and-jio-deal) use to dynamically load more items to the ListView then you scroll to the bottom. In this post i want to shed some light on how to make such a list ourselves!

We can [approach](https://yourviews.mindstick.com/view/81036/coronavirus-pandemic-approach-in-dictatorship-of-hungary) this from a few sides:

- The first option is to add a button to the footer of the view. When pressed it will load more content.
- The second option is to check if the last item is visible and load more content when it is!

Second way is my favorite. We will follow the second approach here to implement our endless list

##### Pre-Requisites:

##### \
1. Ellipse SDK

##### \
2. Android SDK

##### \
3. ADT plugin

##### \

Or Android Studio and a compatible version of JAVA SDK .Install and configure the

above utilities.

Now create a new Android project namely “Endless List”.

##### Implementation objective:

To show the list of items in list view. When the user scrolled the list and reach the end of the screen then more items will be loaded and added to the list and a [progress bar](https://www.mindstick.com/articles/12747/android-progress-bar) will be shown while the items are loading

##### Creating GUIs

##### \

Now, we need to add views in our view groups, i.e. add widgets to our GUI.

We need

1. A Relative /Linear Layout (main GUI) consists of list view which will show our list items.

2. One more UI for footer of the list view. It consists of a [text view](https://www.mindstick.com/forum/33384/detail-text-view-of-cell-not-showing) and a progress bar

For this, navigate to res/Layout/activity_main.xml from package [explorer](https://yourviews.mindstick.com/view/81617/now-it-is-time-to-say-goodbye-to-internet-explorer) in Eclipse. Open activity_main.xml

Add following code into it:

```
<RelativeLayout 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:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"    android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"    android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"    android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"    tools:context=".MainActivity"    android:gravity="center"> 
    <ListView        android:layout_width="fill_parent"        android:layout_height="wrap_content"        android:id="@+id/listview"        ></ListView> 
</RelativeLayout>
```

Creating Footer view:

Footer view will be appended to the list view at the end of the list to show the progress while the next items are loading in the list.

Now, navigate to res/Layout/loading view.xml from package explorer in Eclipse.

Open loading _view.xml

Add following code into it:

```
<?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="horizontal"    android:gravity="center"> 
    <TextView        android:layout_width="wrap_content"        android:layout_height="wrap_content"        android:text="Loading"        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceMedium" />
    <ProgressBar        android:layout_width="wrap_content"        android:layout_height="wrap_content"        android:layout_marginRight="10dp"        android:layout_gravity="bottom" /> 
</LinearLayout> 
```

##### Main Activity Implementation:

· The key of this pattern is OnScrollListener which will listen to user when the user scroll on the list. All the magic is done inside its OnScroll() method.

· The actual loading is done in a separate thread (Runnable). This way we don't lock the main [interface](https://www.mindstick.com/articles/12036/interface-in-c-sharp) (GUI).

· The loading is done by 2 Runnables. The 1st runnable ( loadMoreListItems ) is called to get the data and the 2nd runnable ( returnRes ) is called on the main (UI) thread to update the interface.

· To switch from the 1st to the 2nd we use a method named: runOnUiThread

Navigate to MainActivity in src folder from package explorer. Open MainActivity and this code in it:

```
package com.example.msclient010.endlesslist; import android.content.Context;import android.os.Bundle;import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;import android.view.LayoutInflater;import android.view.Menu;import android.view.MenuItem;import android.view.View;import android.widget.AbsListView;import android.widget.ArrayAdapter;import android.widget.ListView;import java.util.ArrayList; 
public class MainActivity extends ActionBarActivity { 
    //arrayList to hold list view items    ArrayList<String> myListItems;    // list view which will show our list items    ListView listView;    //it will tell us weather to load more items or not    boolean loadingMore = false;    //array adpter to set list items    ArrayAdapter adapter; 
    @Override    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main); 
        //getting reference of list view        listView = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.listview);        myListItems = new ArrayList<String>(); 
        //add the footer before adding the adapter, else the footer will not load!        View footerView = ((LayoutInflater) this.getSystemService(Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE)).inflate(R.layout.loading_view, null, false);
        this.listView.addFooterView(footerView); 
        //create and adapter        adapter = new ArrayAdapter(this, android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1, myListItems);
        //setting adapter to list view        listView.setAdapter(adapter);        //setting  listener on scroll event of the list        listView.setOnScrollListener(new AbsListView.OnScrollListener() {
            @Override            public void onScrollStateChanged(AbsListView view, int scrollState) {            }
            @Override            public void onScroll(AbsListView view, int firstVisibleItem, int visibleItemCount, int totalItemCount) {
                //what is the bottom item that is visible                int lastInScreen = firstVisibleItem + visibleItemCount;
                //is the bottom item visible & not loading more already? Load more!                if ((lastInScreen == totalItemCount) && !(loadingMore)) { 
                    //start a new thread for loading the items in the list                    Thread thread = new Thread(null, loadMoreListItems);                    thread.start();
                }
            }
        }); 
    } 
    @Override    public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {        // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.        getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_main, menu);        return true;
    }    @Override    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {        // Handle action bar item clicks here. The action bar will        // automatically handle clicks on the Home/Up button, so long        // as you specify a parent activity in AndroidManifest.xml.        int id = item.getItemId();        //noinspection SimplifiableIfStatement        if (id == R.id.action_settings) {            return true;
        }
        return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
    }    private Runnable loadMoreListItems = new Runnable() {        @Override        public void run() {            //Set flag so we cant load new items 2 at the same time            loadingMore = true;            //Reset the array that holds the new items            myListItems = new ArrayList<String>();            //Simulate a delay, delete this on a production environment!            try {
                Thread.sleep(1000);
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {            }
            //Get 10 new list items            for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
                //Fill the item with some bogus information                myListItems.add("item" + i);
            }            //Done! now continue on the UI thread            runOnUiThread(returnRes);
        }
    };    private Runnable returnRes = new Runnable() {        @Override        public void run() {            //Loop through the new items and add them to the adapter            if (myListItems != null && myListItems.size() > 0) {
                for (int i = 0; i < myListItems.size(); i++)                    adapter.add(myListItems.get(i));
            }            //Update the Application title            setTitle("Never ending List with " + String.valueOf(adapter.getCount()) + " items");
            //Tell to the adapter that changes have been made, this will cause the list to refresh
            adapter.notifyDataSetChanged();
            //Done loading more.
           loadingMore = false;
        }

    };
}
```

##### Running the application:

Just hit on “Run” button and our app will be launched and the list view will be displayed:

![Endless List view Adapter in Android](https://www.mindstick.com/mindstickarticle/5f922463-9b3e-426d-8f0f-e66d1906ba00/images/09925621-996c-44f9-9824-12cdb14bc135.png)

Ten items will be displayed on the screen. As you scroll your list to see more items, a progress bar will appear while the next ten items will be added in the list view

Also notice the title which will indicate the current number of items in the list.

![Endless List view Adapter in Android](https://www.mindstick.com/mindstickarticle/5f922463-9b3e-426d-8f0f-e66d1906ba00/images/f69bb4d3-8b19-4891-b572-aba415eb18d4.png)

Next,we will see how to use fragments in our app : Fragment [Implementation](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/44913/who-is-the-minister-of-statistics-and-programme-implementation) in Android

Thanks for reading this post.

Happy Coding!! J

---

Original Source: https://www.mindstick.com/articles/1570/endless-list-view-adapter-in-android

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