Padding List Items?

Question

I have a list where i basically need a hierarchy of items. Any children of an item would be padded slightly, as to easily distinguish their parent item. How could this be achieved?

Note that i could, if needed, make each parent show no children, and then when the parent is clicked, a new list containing all of it's children is loaded. This however requires more clicking to display information than i would prefer.

Also, the items themselves will contain graphics and whatnot (to show a drag'n'drop button, etc), so it would be best if it visually appeared as if the item itself had a margin, rather than the contents of the item being padded.

Thanks to any replies!

Answer 1

Step #1: Make sure each item in your data model can determine its depth (roots = depth of 0, children of roots = depth of 1, grandchildren of roots = depth of 2, etc.)

Step #2: In your custom ListAdapter's getView() or bindView(), do something to slide your stuff over to the right by a multiple of that position's depth, such as:

• adjusting the left margin of your first child widget inside your row
• putting a spacer invisible View as the left-most widget and changing its width
• adjusting the left margin of the whole row (not sure if this will work)

Make sure that when you recycle rows, you always fix up the margin to the value for the current position.