Showing empty view when ListView is empty

Question

For some reason the empty view, a TextView in this case, always appears even when the ListView is not empty. I thought the ListView would automatically detect when to show the empty view.

<RelativeLayout android:id="@+id/LinearLayoutAR"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent">
    <ListView android:id="@+id/ARListView"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="fill_parent"></ListView>
    <ProgressBar android:id="@+id/arProgressBar"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
        android:layout_centerVertical="true"></ProgressBar>
    <!-- Here is the view to show if the list is emtpy -->
    <TextView android:id="@id/android:empty"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:text="No Results" />
</RelativeLayout>

How can I hook up the empty view properly?

Answer 1

It should be like this:

<TextView android:id="@android:id/empty"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:text="No Results" />

Note the id attribute.

Answer 2

When you extend FragmentActivity or Activity and not ListActivity, you'll want to take a look at:

ListView.setEmptyView()

Answer 3

As appsthatmatter says, in the layout something like:

<ListView android:id="@+id/listView" ... />
<TextView android:id="@+id/emptyElement" ... />

and in the linked Activity:

this.listView = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.listView);
this.listView.setEmptyView(findViewById(R.id.emptyElement));

Does also work with a GridView...

Answer 4

I tried all the above solutions.I came up solving the issue.Here I am posting the full solution.

The xml file:

<RelativeLayout
    android:id="@+id/header_main_page_clist1"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:layout_margin="20dp"
    android:paddingBottom="10dp"
    android:background="#ffffff" >

    <ListView
        android:id="@+id/lv_msglist"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:divider="@color/divider_color"
        android:dividerHeight="1dp" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/emptyElement"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_centerInParent="true"
        android:text="NO MESSAGES AVAILABLE!"
        android:textColor="#525252"
        android:textSize="19.0sp"
        android:visibility="gone" />
</RelativeLayout>

The textView ("@+id/emptyElement") is the placeholder for the empty listview.

Here is the code for java page:

lvmessage=(ListView)findViewById(R.id.lv_msglist);
lvmessage.setAdapter(adapter);
lvmessage.setEmptyView(findViewById(R.id.emptyElement));

Remember to place the emptyView after binding the adapter to listview.Mine was not working for first time and after I moved the setEmptyView after the setAdapter it is now working.

Output:

Answer 5

I highly recommend you to use ViewStubs like this

<FrameLayout
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="0dp"
    android:layout_weight="1" >

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

    <ViewStub
        android:id="@android:id/empty"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="center"
        android:layout="@layout/empty" />
</FrameLayout>

See the full example from Cyril Mottier

Answer 6

<ListView android:id="@+id/listView" ... />
<TextView android:id="@+id/empty" ... />
and in the linked Activity:

this.listView = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.listView);
this.listView.setEmptyView(findViewById(R.id.empty));

This works clearly with FragmentActivity if you are using the support library. Tested this by building for API 17 i.e. 4.2.2 image.

Answer 7

Activity code, its important to extend ListActivity.

package com.example.mylistactivity;

import android.app.ListActivity;
import android.os.Bundle;
import android.widget.ArrayAdapter;
import com.example.mylistactivity.R;

// It's important to extend ListActivity rather than Activity
public class MyListActivity extends ListActivity {

    @Override
    public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.mylist);

        // shows list view
        String[] values = new String[] { "foo", "bar" };

        // shows empty view
        values = new String[] { };

        setListAdapter(new ArrayAdapter<String>(
                this,
                android.R.layout.simple_list_item_1,
                android.R.id.text1,
                values));
    }
}

Layout xml, the id in both views are important.

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

    <!-- the android:id is important -->
    <ListView
        android:id="@android:id/list"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="fill_parent"/>

    <!-- the android:id is important -->
    <TextView
        android:id="@android:id/empty"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="fill_parent"
        android:text="i am empty"/>
</LinearLayout>

Answer 8

Just to add that you don't really need to create new IDs, something like the following will work.

In the layout:

<ListView
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:id="@android:id/list"/>

<TextView
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:id="@android:id/empty"
    android:text="Empty"/>

Then in the activity:

    ListView listView = (ListView) findViewById(android.R.id.list);
    listView.setEmptyView(findViewById(android.R.id.empty));

Answer 9

I had this problem. I had to make my class extend ListActivity rather than Activity, and rename my list in the XML to android:id="@android:id/list"

Answer 10

A programmatically solution will be:

TextView textView = new TextView(context);
textView.setId(android.R.id.empty);
textView.setLayoutParams(new ViewGroup.LayoutParams(ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT));
textView.setText("No result found");
listView.setEmptyView(textView);

Answer 11

First check the list contains some values:

if (list.isEmpty()) {
    listview.setVisibility(View.GONE);
}

If it is then OK, otherwise use:

else {
     listview.setVisibility(View.VISIBLE);
}