Question

I have a ListView with an ArrayAdapter holding rows with a Image and a String. This worked fine until I decided that the loading of the images was to slow so I could not load the images before showing the list. So I started to load the images in a separate thread using an AsyncTask.

I was very happy with the result until I started to scroll the list. Wrong images was loaded and it doesn’t look like it is a question of the image getting a while later. If I attempt to sort the list the problem goes really bad and none of the images is on the right row.

Any ideas of what I’m doing wrong?

public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
        View v = convertView;
        ImageView imageView;
        TextView textView;
        if (v == null) {
            LayoutInflater vi = (LayoutInflater) getContext().getSystemService(
                    Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
            v = vi.inflate(R.layout.drink_list_row, null);
        }

        Drink drink = allItems.get(position);
        if (drink != null && v != null) {
            imageView = (ImageView) v.findViewById(R.id.picture);
            textView = (TextView) v.findViewById(R.id.drinkName);
            imageView.setVisibility(View.GONE);
            loadImageBitmap(drink, imageView);
            textView.setText(drink.getName());

            if (subItems != null && subItems.contains(drink)) {
                textView.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
                imageView.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
            } else {
                textView.setVisibility(View.GONE);
                imageView.setVisibility(View.GONE);
            }
        }
        return v;
    }

Answer 1

The problem comes from your convertView: it’s the same single instance that is used throughout the list, so when your asynchronous loading is complete, the image is changed when the listview is trying to paint a different item using the same convertView (or in that case, its child imageView).

painting position 1, uses placeholder, starts loading image 1 asynchronously
painting position 2, uses placeholder, starts loading image 2 asynchronously
image 1 loading is complete, calling setImageBitmap on imageView
painting position 3, uses image 1, starts loading image 3 asynchronously
etc.

What you can do though is keep a cache of Bitmaps in the listadapter. Something like this:

private Bitmap[] bitmapList;
private Bitmap bitmapPlaceholder;  

private void initBitmapListWithPlaceholders(){ 
// call this whenever the list size changes
// you can also use a list or a map or whatever so you 
// don't need to drop all the previously loaded bitmap whenever 
// the list contents are modified
    int count = getListCount();
    bitmapList = new Bitmap[count];
    for(int i=0;i<count;i++){
         bitmapList[i]=bitmapPlaceholder
    }
}

private void onBitmapLoaded(int position, Bitmap bmp){
// this is your callback when the load async is done
    bitmapList[position] = bmp;
}

public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
    View v = convertView;
    ImageView imageView;
    TextView textView;
    if (v == null) {
        LayoutInflater vi = (LayoutInflater) getContext().getSystemService(
                Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
        v = vi.inflate(R.layout.drink_list_row, null);
    }

    Drink drink = allItems.get(position);
    if (drink != null && v != null) {
        imageView = (ImageView) v.findViewById(R.id.picture);
        textView = (TextView) v.findViewById(R.id.drinkName);
        imageView.setVisibility(View.GONE);
        imageView.setImageBitmap(bitmapList[position]);
        loadImageBitmap(drink, position); // this should call onBitmapLoaded(int position, Bitmap bmp) when finished to update the bitmapList and replace the placeholder
        textView.setText(drink.getName());

        if (subItems != null && subItems.contains(drink)) {
            textView.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
            imageView.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
        } else {
            textView.setVisibility(View.GONE);
            imageView.setVisibility(View.GONE);
        }
    }
    return v;
}