How to create Google + cards UI in a list view?

Question

I want to create a listView of cards, but after reading this blog post goolge-plus-layout, I'm cards are a viable solution for a list of anything. The animation part seems too memory intensive to load say a listview with more than 40 elements simultaneously.

Is there a better way to achieve a cards UI in listView?

Answer 1

You can create a custom drawable, and apply that to each of your listview elements.

I use this one for cards in my UI. I don't think there is significant performance issues with this approach.

The drawable code (in drawable\big_card.xml) looks like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >

    <item>
        <shape android:shape="rectangle" >
            <solid android:color="@color/second_grey" />
        </shape>
    </item>
    <item
        android:bottom="10dp"
        android:left="10dp"
        android:right="10dp"
        android:top="10dp">
        <shape android:shape="rectangle" >
            <corners android:radius="3dp" />

            <solid android:color="@color/card_shadow" />
        </shape>
    </item>
    <item
        android:bottom="12dp"
        android:left="10dp"
        android:right="10dp"
        android:top="10dp">
        <shape android:shape="rectangle" >
            <corners android:radius="3dp" />

            <solid android:color="@color/card_white" />
        </shape>
    </item>


</layer-list>

I apply the background to my listview elements like this:

<ListView
    android:id="@+id/apps_fragment_list"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:listSelector="@drawable/big_card" />

If you want to add this as a background to any View (not just a list), you just make the custom drawable that View's background element:

<TextView
        android:id="@+id/any_view"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:background="@drawable/big_card" />