Question

Is it possible to apply a custom background to each Listview item via the list selector?

The default selector specifies @android:color/transparent for the state_focused="false" case, but changing this to some custom drawable doesn’t affect items that aren’t selected. Romain Guy seems to suggest in this answer that this is possible.

I’m currently achieving the same affect by using a custom background on each view and hiding it when the item is selected/focused/whatever so the selector is shown, but it’d be more elegant to have this all defined in one place.

For reference, this is the selector I’m using to try and get this working:

<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

    <item android:state_focused="false"
        android:drawable="@drawable/list_item_gradient" />

    <!-- Even though these two point to the same resource, have two states so the drawable will invalidate itself when coming out of pressed state. -->
    <item android:state_focused="true" android:state_enabled="false"
        android:state_pressed="true"
        android:drawable="@drawable/list_selector_background_disabled" />
    <item android:state_focused="true" android:state_enabled="false"
        android:drawable="@drawable/list_selector_background_disabled" />

    <item android:state_focused="true" android:state_pressed="true"
        android:drawable="@drawable/list_selector_background_transition" />
    <item android:state_focused="false" android:state_pressed="true"
        android:drawable="@drawable/list_selector_background_transition" />

    <item android:state_focused="true"
        android:drawable="@drawable/list_selector_background_focus" />
        
</selector>

And this is how I’m setting the selector:

<ListView
    android:id="@android:id/list"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:listSelector="@drawable/list_selector_background" />    

Answer 1

I’ve been frustrated by this myself and finally solved it. As Romain Guy hinted to, there’s another state, "android:state_selected", that you must use. Use a state drawable for the background of your list item, and use a different state drawable for listSelector of your list:

list_row_layout.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="?android:attr/listPreferredItemHeight"
    android:background="@drawable/listitem_background"
    >
...
</LinearLayout>

listitem_background.xml:

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

layout.xml that includes the ListView:

...
<ListView 
   android:layout_width="fill_parent"
   android:layout_height="wrap_content"
   android:listSelector="@drawable/listitem_selector"
   />
...

listitem_selector.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item android:state_pressed="true" android:drawable="@drawable/listitem_pressed" />
    <item android:state_focused="true" android:drawable="@drawable/listitem_selected" />
</selector>