Question

I’m having trouble with the setListAdapter(). It tells me to just create the method because it doesn’t know anything about it. I’m, for now, just trying to get a list to populate and I don’t even know what this code is doing.

public class PassScreen extends Activity {
TextView selection;
ArrayList<String> items = new ArrayList<String>();
/** Called when the activity is first created. */
@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE);
    setContentView(R.layout.passwordscreen);
    selection=(TextView)findViewById(R.id.selection);

    try { 
        InputStream in=getResources().openRawResource(R.raw.words);
        DocumentBuilder builder=DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance().newDocumentBuilder();
        Document doc = builder.parse(in,null);
        NodeList words=doc.getElementsByTagName("word");
        for (int i =0;i<words.getLength();i++){
            items.add(((Element)words.item(i)).getAttribute("value"));
        }
        in.close();
    }
    catch (Throwable t){
        Toast.makeText(this, "Exception: " + t.toString(), 2000).show();
    }

            setListAdapter(new ArrayAdapter<String>(this,
            android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1,
            items));

}
public void onListItemClick(ListView parent, View v, int position, long id){
    selection.setText(items.get(position).toString());
}
}

As you can see I have and xml file that I’m using. That looks just like what the book looks like but then again I copy and pasted the setListAdapter() so I guess that’s not all that helpful.

If you could also show me what the setListAdapter() is doing that would be great. I can’t seen to understand what google is talking about.

Here is the xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent">

<TextView
android:id="@+id/selection"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>

<ListView
  android:id="@android:id/list"
  android:layout_width="fill_parent"
  android:layout_height="fill_parent"
  android:drawSelectorOnTop="false"/>

</LinearLayout>

And some of the words xml:

<words>
<word value="lorem"/>
<word value="ipsom"/>
<word value="dolor"/>
</words>

Also can you explain what’s going on? I don’t understand the setListAdapter() at all. Or just point to Googles white paper. I can’t find it. It’s not like I know how to look that stuff up anyway.

Answer 1

setListAdapter() isn’t a method you can call on an Activity (it is available on ListActivity but you’re not using that). You’re going to have to add a ListView into your layout (/res/layout/passwordscreen) and then find it and call setAdapter on that.

e.g.

ListView lv = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.mylistview);
lv.setAdapter(.....);