Question

I am using multiple choice ListView items. The user can select multiple items. So I wanted to highlight the items selected by the user by changing either the text color or background color of the list row. I have gone through stack overflows links but didn’t get the proper solution. When I am trying to do it, it is randomly changing any unselected item background color. Help!!!

public void onItemClick(AdapterView<?> parent, View v, int position, long id) {
    videocursor.moveToPosition(position);
    v.setBackgroundColor(Color.parseColor("#80B7DBE8"));
    SaveSelections();
}

Answer 1

Far better than the above suggestions is to use a selector, also known as a state-list drawable. That way, the OS takes care of all of the business of color highlighting, etc.

more explicitly, take the following xml and save it under res/drawable as something like li_background.xml (I’m using images, but feel free to swap out colors as is appropriate to your situation)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
        <item android:state_focused="true"
          android:drawable="@drawable/list_item_pressed" />
    <item android:state_pressed="true"
          android:drawable="@drawable/list_item_pressed" />
    <item android:state_selected="true"
          android:state_activated="true"
          android:drawable="@drawable/list_item_selected" />
    <item android:state_activated="true"
          android:drawable="@drawable/list_item_selected" />
    <item android:state_selected="true"
          android:drawable="@android:color/black" />
    <item android:drawable="@android:color/transparent" />
</selector>

and set the background of All ListItems in the ListView to R.drawable.li_background. if your listView is properly configured for multiple selections (android:choiceMode="multipleChoice" or listView.setChoiceMode(AbsListView.CHOICE_MODE_MULTIPLE); if you prefer) then android will take care of the rest. This stuff isn’t well documented, I had a hard time finding the solution and I see similar questions all the time, but the relevant dos are here and here