Android onTouchListener for entire dialog

Question

I have a dialog to choose files from. This dialog contains a listview to show directories and files and has an onItemClickListener for navigation purposes.

How can I react to fling events to go up in the directory structure? I tried setting an OnTouchListener on the root RelativeLayout to dispatches touch events to my GestureListener:

    final GestureDetector detector = new GestureDetector(new MyGestureDetector(tvCurrentPath));     
        dialog.findViewById(R.id.rlFilelist).setOnTouchListener(new OnTouchListener() {
            public boolean onTouch(View view, MotionEvent e) {
                detector.onTouchEvent(e);
                return false;
            }
        });

The events get registered in onTouch(), but the onFling() method is never called in the MyGestureDetector. If, however, I attach the OnTouchListener to the listview, it works as expected. The problem with this approach is that the listview is not always filled extensively with data and when it is empty or when clicking below items, no onTouch() events are triggered.

Dialog layout:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:id="@+id/rlFilelist"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:focusable="true" >    

    <RelativeLayout
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="fill_parent"
        android:layout_above="@+id/llButtons" >

        <TextView
            android:id="@+id/tvCurrentPath"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_marginLeft="10dip"
            android:layout_marginRight="10dip" >
        </TextView>

        <ListView
            android:id="@+id/lvFileListing"
            android:layout_width="fill_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_above="@id/llButtons"
            android:layout_below="@id/tvCurrentPath" >
        </ListView>
    </RelativeLayout>

    <RelativeLayout
        android:id="@+id/llButtons"
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
        android:layout_marginBottom="5dip"
        android:layout_marginTop="5dip" >

        <Button
            android:id="@+id/btAddDirectory"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_alignParentLeft="true"
            android:layout_marginRight="10px"
            android:text="@string/host_tv_dg_add_directory" />

        <Button
            android:id="@+id/btUp"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_marginRight="10px"
            android:layout_toRightOf="@id/btAddDirectory"
            android:text="@string/host_tv_dg_navigate_up" />

        <Button
            android:id="@+id/btClose"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_toRightOf="@id/btUp"
            android:text="@string/_tv_close" />
    </RelativeLayout>

</RelativeLayout>

Screenshot for dialog with not completely filled lisview: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/802/dialog.png/

How can I make the onFling() events trigger on the whole dialog or on the "whole" listview even when it's not completely filled with items?

Thank you!

Answer 1

You should create a class which extends the dialog class and then you can create a gesture detector and attach to the ontouchevent of the class. Here is a code example:

public class GestureDialog extends Dialog {
    public GestureDialog (Context context, int theme) {
        super(context, theme);

        gestDetec = new MyGestureDetector();    //inital setup
        gestureDetector = new GestureDetector(gestDetec);   
        gestureListener = new View.OnTouchListener() {
            public boolean onTouch(View v, MotionEvent event) {
                if (gestureDetector.onTouchEvent(event)) {
                    return true;
                }
                return false;
            }
        };
    }
    @Override
    public boolean onTouchEvent(MotionEvent event) {
        if (gestureDetector.onTouchEvent(event))
            return true;
        else
            return false;
    }
class MyGestureDetector extends SimpleOnGestureListener {
    @Override
    public boolean onFling(MotionEvent e1, MotionEvent e2, float velocityX, float velocityY) {

        System.out.println( "Help im being touched!" );
        return false;
    }
}

}