Android - MapView contained within a Listview

Question

Hello,

Currently I am trying to place a MapView within a ListView. Has anyone had any success with this? Is it even possible? Here is my code:

            ListView myList = (ListView) findViewById(android.R.id.list);
        List<Map<String, Object>> groupData = new ArrayList<Map<String, Object>>();

        Map<String, Object> curGroupMap = new HashMap<String, Object>();
        groupData.add(curGroupMap);
        curGroupMap.put("ICON", R.drawable.back_icon);
        curGroupMap.put("NAME","Go Back");
        curGroupMap.put("VALUE","By clicking here");

        Iterator it = data.entrySet().iterator();
        while (it.hasNext()) 
        {
            //Get the key name and value for it
            Map.Entry pair = (Map.Entry)it.next();
            String keyName = (String) pair.getKey();
            String value = pair.getValue().toString();

            if (value != null)
            {
                //Add the parents -- aka main categories
                curGroupMap = new HashMap<String, Object>();
                groupData.add(curGroupMap);

                //Push the correct Icon
                if (keyName.equalsIgnoreCase("Phone"))
                    curGroupMap.put("ICON", R.drawable.phone_icon);
                else if (keyName.equalsIgnoreCase("Housing"))
                    curGroupMap.put("ICON", R.drawable.house_icon);
                else if (keyName.equalsIgnoreCase("Website"))
                    curGroupMap.put("ICON", R.drawable.web_icon);
                else if (keyName.equalsIgnoreCase("Area Snapshot"))
                    curGroupMap.put("ICON", R.drawable.camera_icon);
                else if (keyName.equalsIgnoreCase("Overview"))
                    curGroupMap.put("ICON", R.drawable.overview_icon);  
                else if (keyName.equalsIgnoreCase("Location"))
                    curGroupMap.put("ICON", R.drawable.map_icon);
                else
                    curGroupMap.put("ICON", R.drawable.icon);

                //Pop on the Name and Value
                curGroupMap.put("NAME", keyName);
                curGroupMap.put("VALUE", value);
            }
        }

        curGroupMap = new HashMap<String, Object>();
        groupData.add(curGroupMap);
        curGroupMap.put("ICON", R.drawable.back_icon);
        curGroupMap.put("NAME","Go Back");
        curGroupMap.put("VALUE","By clicking here");

        //Set up adapter
        mAdapter = new SimpleAdapter(
                mContext,
                groupData,
                R.layout.exp_list_parent,
                new String[] { "ICON", "NAME", "VALUE" },
                new int[] { R.id.photoAlbumImg, R.id.rowText1, R.id.rowText2  }
        );

        myList.setAdapter(mAdapter); //Bind the adapter to the list 

Thanks in advance for your help!!

Answer 1

In that case you would add the MapView to the list just like you would any other view. Here's a quick tutorial on how to create a custom list adapter. But I have to caution you, a MapView is a pretty heavy view and if you try to get a bunch of them on the screen you're going to notice the app being sluggish! You may just add a button to the list item that takes the user to another page with more information including a map.

Answer 2

First off, I'm don't think displaying multiple MapViews at once will work. MapActivity documents that only one is supported per process:

"Only one MapActivity is supported per process. Multiple MapActivities running simultaneously are likely to interfere in unexpected and undesired ways."

(http://code.google.com/android/add-ons/google-apis/reference/index.html)

It doesn't explicitly say you can't have multiple MapViews within a MapActivity but I think they'll interfere as well, regardless of what kind of parent ViewGroup they're in.

Second, you might consider using the static maps API to get a simple image for inclusion in the ListView -- a fully-fledged MapView may be unnecessarily heavyweight in any case:

http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/staticmaps/

The one issue you may potentially face is that the Static Maps API limits usage by "user", which probably means by IP (it doesn't require an API key), and mobile networks can be problematic with IP usage limiting. I'm not sure exactly how that'll play out.