Question

Since the locaion (network or gps) takes a while to receive, how would one use location data in a list view. If the list view is populated on create, often the location is not yet found and would be null.

Is the best way to architect this type of view to render the list view and then subsequently populate the rows with the location data?

If so or if not, what is the best approach? How would you implement this with code examples?

Answer 1

You can setup a ListView with its data list and notify it when the data has changed. Here’s an example.

ArrayList<String> myData = new ArrayList<String>();
ListView myListView = null;

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
   super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
   ...

   myListView = (ListView)findViewById(R.id.mylistview);
   myListView.setAdapter(new ArrayAdapter<String>(this, R.id.textlayout, myData));
}

What I did was get my list view and setup the adapter with an empty array list. Now, anytime I want to update the list views data, I do the following.

myData.add("My new location");
myListView.getAdapter().notifyDataSetChanged();

The list view will be updated. Another way to do this is to add the data straight to the adapter instead of the list passed in.

myArrayAdapter.setNotifyOnChange(true);
myArrayAdapter.add("My new location");