Maintain/Save/Restore scroll position when returning to a ListView

Try this:

// save index and top position
int index = mList.getFirstVisiblePosition();
View v = mList.getChildAt(0);
int top = (v == null) ? 0 : (v.getTop() - mList.getPaddingTop());

// ...

// restore index and position
mList.setSelectionFromTop(index, top);

Explanation:

ListView.getFirstVisiblePosition() returns the top visible list item. But this item may be partially scrolled out of view, and if you want to restore the exact scroll position of the list you need to get this offset. So ListView.getChildAt(0) returns the View for the top list item, and then View.getTop() - mList.getPaddingTop() returns its relative offset from the top of the ListView. Then, to restore the ListView's scroll position, we call ListView.setSelectionFromTop() with the index of the item we want and an offset to position its top edge from the top of the ListView.

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Parcelable state;

@Override
public void onPause() {    
    // Save ListView state @ onPause
    Log.d(TAG, "saving listview state");
    state = listView.onSaveInstanceState();
    super.onPause();
}
...

@Override
public void onViewCreated(final View view, Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onViewCreated(view, savedInstanceState);
    // Set new items
    listView.setAdapter(adapter);
    ...
    // Restore previous state (including selected item index and scroll position)
    if(state != null) {
        Log.d(TAG, "trying to restore listview state");
        listView.onRestoreInstanceState(state);
    }
}

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I adopted the solution suggested by @(Kirk Woll), and it works for me. I have also seen in the Android source code for the "Contacts" app, that they use a similar technique. I would like to add some more details: On top on my ListActivity-derived class:

private static final String LIST_STATE = "listState";
private Parcelable mListState = null;

Then, some method overrides:

@Override
protected void onRestoreInstanceState(Bundle state) {
    super.onRestoreInstanceState(state);
    mListState = state.getParcelable(LIST_STATE);
}

@Override
protected void onResume() {
    super.onResume();
    loadData();
    if (mListState != null)
        getListView().onRestoreInstanceState(mListState);
    mListState = null;
}

@Override
protected void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle state) {
    super.onSaveInstanceState(state);
    mListState = getListView().onSaveInstanceState();
    state.putParcelable(LIST_STATE, mListState);
}

Of course "loadData" is my function to retrieve data from the DB and put it onto the list.

On my Froyo device, this works both when you change the phone orientation, and when you edit an item and go back to the list.

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A very simple way:

/** Save the position **/
int currentPosition = listView.getFirstVisiblePosition();

//Here u should save the currentPosition anywhere

/** Restore the previus saved position **/
listView.setSelection(savedPosition);

The method setSelection will reset the list to the supplied item. If not in touch mode the item will actually be selected if in touch mode the item will only be positioned on screen.

A more complicated approach:

listView.setOnScrollListener(this);

//Implements the interface:
@Override
public void onScroll(AbsListView view, int firstVisibleItem,
            int visibleItemCount, int totalItemCount) {
    mCurrentX = view.getScrollX();
    mCurrentY = view.getScrollY();
}

@Override
public void onScrollStateChanged(AbsListView view, int scrollState) {

}

//Save anywere the x and the y

/** Restore: **/
listView.scrollTo(savedX, savedY);

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I found something interesting about this.

I tried setSelection and scrolltoXY but it did not work at all, the list remained in the same position, after some trial and error I got the following code that does work

final ListView list = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.list);
list.post(new Runnable() {            
    @Override
    public void run() {
        list.setSelection(0);
    }
});

If instead of posting the Runnable you try runOnUiThread it does not work either (at least on some devices)

This is a very strange workaround for something that should be straight forward.

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CAUTION!! There is a bug in AbsListView that doesn't allow the onSaveState() to work correctly if the ListView.getFirstVisiblePosition() is 0.

So If you have large images that take up most of the screen, and you scroll to the second image, but a little of the first is showing, the scroll position Won't be saved...

from AbsListView.java:1650 (comments mine)

// this will be false when the firstPosition IS 0
if (haveChildren && mFirstPosition > 0) {
    ...
} else {
    ss.viewTop = 0;
    ss.firstId = INVALID_POSITION;
    ss.position = 0;
}

But in this situation, the 'top' in the code below will be a negative number which causes other issues that prevent the state to be restored correctly. So when the 'top' is negative, get the next child

// save index and top position
int index = getFirstVisiblePosition();
View v = getChildAt(0);
int top = (v == null) ? 0 : v.getTop();

if (top < 0 && getChildAt(1) != null) {
    index++;
    v = getChildAt(1);
    top = v.getTop();
}
// parcel the index and top

// when restoring, unparcel index and top
listView.setSelectionFromTop(index, top);

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For some looking for a solution to this problem, the root of the issue may be where you are setting your list views adapter. After you set the adapter on the listview, it resets the scroll position. Just something to consider. I moved setting the adapter into my onCreateView after we grab the reference to the listview, and it solved the problem for me. =)

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private Parcelable state;
@Override
public void onPause() {
    state = mAlbumListView.onSaveInstanceState();
    super.onPause();
}

@Override
public void onResume() {
    super.onResume();

    if (getAdapter() != null) {
        mAlbumListView.setAdapter(getAdapter());
        if (state != null){
            mAlbumListView.requestFocus();
            mAlbumListView.onRestoreInstanceState(state);
        }
    }
}

That's enough

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Am posting this because I am surprised nobody had mentioned this.

After user clicks the back button he will return to the listview in the same state as he went out of it.

This code will override the "up" button to behave the same way as the back button so in the case of Listview -> Details -> Back to Listview (and no other options) this is the simplest code to maintain the scrollposition and the content in the listview.

 public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
     switch (item.getItemId()) {
         case android.R.id.home:
             onBackPressed();
             return(true);
     }
     return(super.onOptionsItemSelected(item)); }

Caution: If you can go to another activity from the details activity the up button will return you back to that activity so you will have to manipulate the backbutton history in order for this to work.

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Isn't simply android:saveEnabled="true" in the ListView xml declaration enough?

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BEST SOLUTION IS:

// save index and top position
int index = mList.getFirstVisiblePosition();
View v = mList.getChildAt(0);
int top = (v == null) ? 0 : (v.getTop() - mList.getPaddingTop());

// ...

// restore index and position
mList.post(new Runnable() {
    @Override
    public void run() {
      mList.setSelectionFromTop(index, top);
   }
});

YOU MUST CALL IN POST AND IN THREAD!

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You can maintain the scroll state after a reload if you save the state before you reload and restore it after. In my case I made a asynchronous network request and reloaded the list in a callback after it completed. This is where I restore state. Code sample is Kotlin.

val state = myList.layoutManager.onSaveInstanceState()

getNewThings() { newThings: List<Thing> ->

    myList.adapter.things = newThings
    myList.layoutManager.onRestoreInstanceState(state)
}

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If you're using fragments hosted on an activity you can do something like this:

public abstract class BaseFragment extends Fragment {
     private boolean mSaveView = false;
     private SoftReference<View> mViewReference;

     @Override
     public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container, Bundle savedInstanceState) {
          if (mSaveView) {
               if (mViewReference != null) {
                    final View savedView = mViewReference.get();
                    if (savedView != null) {
                         if (savedView.getParent() != null) {
                              ((ViewGroup) savedView.getParent()).removeView(savedView);
                              return savedView;
                         }
                    }
               }
          }

          final View view = inflater.inflate(getFragmentResource(), container, false);
          mViewReference = new SoftReference<View>(view);
          return view;
     }

     protected void setSaveView(boolean value) {
           mSaveView = value;
     }
}

public class MyFragment extends BaseFragment {
     @Override
     public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container, Bundle savedInstanceState) {
          setSaveView(true);
          final View view = super.onCreateView(inflater, container, savedInstanceState);
          ListView placesList = (ListView) view.findViewById(R.id.places_list);
          if (placesList.getAdapter() == null) {
               placesList.setAdapter(createAdapter());
          }
     }
}

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If you are saving/restoring scroll position of ListView yourself you are essentially duplicating the functionality already implemented in android framework. The ListView restores fine scroll position just well on its own except one caveat: as @aaronvargas mentioned there is a bug in AbsListView that won't let to restore fine scroll position for the first list item. Nevertheless the best way to restore scroll position is not to restore it. Android framework will do it better for you. Just make sure you have met the following conditions:

make sure you have not called setSaveEnabled(false) method and not set android:saveEnabled="false" attribute for the list in the xml layout file

for ExpandableListView override long getCombinedChildId(long groupId, long childId) method so that it returns positive long number (default implementation in class BaseExpandableListAdapter returns negative number). Here are examples:

.

@Override
public long getChildId(int groupPosition, int childPosition) {
    return 0L | groupPosition << 12 | childPosition;
}

@Override
public long getCombinedChildId(long groupId, long childId) {
    return groupId << 32 | childId << 1 | 1;
}

@Override
public long getGroupId(int groupPosition) {
    return groupPosition;
}

@Override
public long getCombinedGroupId(long groupId) {
    return (groupId & 0x7FFFFFFF) << 32;
}

if ListView or ExpandableListView is used in a fragment do not recreate the fragment on activity recreation (after screen rotation for example). Obtain the fragment with findFragmentByTag(String tag) method.

make sure the ListView has an android:id and it is unique.

To avoid aforementioned caveat with first list item you can craft your adapter the way it returns special dummy zero pixels height view for the ListView at position 0. Here is the simple example project shows ListView and ExpandableListView restore their fine scroll positions whereas their scroll positions are not explicitly saved/restored. Fine scroll position is restored perfectly even for the complex scenarios with temporary switching to some other application, double screen rotation and switching back to the test application. Please note, if you are explicitly exiting the application (by pressing the Back button) the scroll position won't be saved (as well as all other Views won't save their state). https://github.com/voromto/RestoreScrollPosition/releases

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For an activity derived from ListActivity that implements LoaderManager.LoaderCallbacks using a SimpleCursorAdapter it did not work to restore the position in onReset(), because the activity was almost always restarted and the adapter was reloaded when the details view was closed. The trick was to restore the position in onLoadFinished():

in onListItemClick():

// save the selected item position when an item was clicked
// to open the details
index = getListView().getFirstVisiblePosition();
View v = getListView().getChildAt(0);
top = (v == null) ? 0 : (v.getTop() - getListView().getPaddingTop());

in onLoadFinished():

// restore the selected item which was saved on item click
// when details are closed and list is shown again
getListView().setSelectionFromTop(index, top);

in onBackPressed():

// Show the top item at next start of the app
index = 0;
top = 0;

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Neither of the solutions offered here seemed to work for me. In my case, I have a ListView in a Fragment which I'm replacing in a FragmentTransaction, so a new Fragment instance is created each time the fragment is shown, which means that the ListView state can not be stored as a member of the Fragment.

Instead, I ended up storing the state in my custom Application class. The code below should give you an idea how this works:

public class MyApplication extends Application {
    public static HashMap<String, Parcelable> parcelableCache = new HashMap<>();


    /* ... code omitted for brevity ... */
}

public class MyFragment extends Fragment{
    private ListView mListView = null;
    private MyAdapter mAdapter = null;


    @Override
    public void onViewCreated(View view, @Nullable Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onViewCreated(view, savedInstanceState);

        mAdapter = new MyAdapter(getActivity(), null, 0);
        mListView = ((ListView) view.findViewById(R.id.myListView));

        Parcelable listViewState = MyApplication.parcelableCache.get("my_listview_state");
        if( listViewState != null )
            mListView.onRestoreInstanceState(listViewState);
    }


    @Override
    public void onPause() {
        MyApplication.parcelableCache.put("my_listview_state", mListView.onSaveInstanceState());
        super.onPause();
    }

    /* ... code omitted for brevity ... */

}

The basic idea is that you store the state outside the fragment instance. If you don't like the idea of having a static field in your application class, I guess you could do it by implementing a fragment interface and storing the state in your activity.

Another solution would be to store it in SharedPreferences, but it gets a bit more complicated, and you would need to make sure you clear it on application launch unless you want the state to be persisted across app launches.

Also, to avoid the "scroll position not saved when first item is visible", you can display a dummy first item with 0px height. This can be achieved by overriding getView() in your adapter, like this:

@Override
public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
    if( position == 0 ) {
        View zeroHeightView = new View(parent.getContext());
        zeroHeightView.setLayoutParams(new ViewGroup.LayoutParams(0, 0));
        return zeroHeightView;
    }
    else
        return super.getView(position, convertView, parent);
}

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My answer is for Firebase and position 0 is a workaround

Parcelable state;

DatabaseReference everybody = db.getReference("Everybody Room List");
    everybody.addValueEventListener(new ValueEventListener() {
        @Override
        public void onDataChange(@NonNull DataSnapshot dataSnapshot) {
            state = listView.onSaveInstanceState(); // Save
            progressBar.setVisibility(View.GONE);
            arrayList.clear();
            for (DataSnapshot messageSnapshot : dataSnapshot.getChildren()) {
                Messages messagesSpacecraft = messageSnapshot.getValue(Messages.class);
                arrayList.add(messagesSpacecraft);
            }
            listView.setAdapter(convertView);
            listView.onRestoreInstanceState(state); // Restore
        }

        @Override
        public void onCancelled(@NonNull DatabaseError databaseError) {
        }
    });

and convertView

position 0 a add a blank item that you are not using

public class Chat_ConvertView_List_Room extends BaseAdapter {

private ArrayList<Messages> spacecrafts;
private Context context;

@SuppressLint("CommitPrefEdits")
Chat_ConvertView_List_Room(Context context, ArrayList<Messages> spacecrafts) {
    this.context = context;
    this.spacecrafts = spacecrafts;
}

@Override
public int getCount() {
    return spacecrafts.size();
}

@Override
public Object getItem(int position) {
    return spacecrafts.get(position);
}

@Override
public long getItemId(int position) {
    return position;
}

@SuppressLint({"SetTextI18n", "SimpleDateFormat"})
@Override
public View getView(final int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
    if (convertView == null) {
        convertView = LayoutInflater.from(context).inflate(R.layout.message_model_list_room, parent, false);
    }

    final Messages s = (Messages) this.getItem(position);

    if (position == 0) {
        convertView.getLayoutParams().height = 1; // 0 does not work
    } else {
        convertView.getLayoutParams().height = RelativeLayout.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT;
    }

    return convertView;
}
}

I have seen this work temporarily without disturbing the user, I hope it works for you

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use this below code :

int index,top;

@Override
protected void onPause() {
    super.onPause();
    index = mList.getFirstVisiblePosition();

    View v = challengeList.getChildAt(0);
    top = (v == null) ? 0 : (v.getTop() - mList.getPaddingTop());
}

and whenever your refresh your data use this below code :

adapter.notifyDataSetChanged();
mList.setSelectionFromTop(index, top);

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I'm using FirebaseListAdapter and couldn't get any of the solutions to work. I ended up doing this. I'm guessing there are more elegant ways but this is a complete and working solution.

Before onCreate:

private int reset;
private int top;
private int index;

Inside of the FirebaseListAdapter:

@Override
public void onDataChanged() {
     super.onDataChanged();

     // Only do this on first change, when starting
     // activity or coming back to it.
     if(reset == 0) {
          mListView.setSelectionFromTop(index, top);
          reset++;
     }

 }

onStart:

@Override
protected void onStart() {
    super.onStart();
    if(adapter != null) {
        adapter.startListening();
        index = 0;
        top = 0;
        // Get position from SharedPrefs
        SharedPreferences sharedPref = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(this);
        top = sharedPref.getInt("TOP_POSITION", 0);
        index = sharedPref.getInt("INDEX_POSITION", 0);
        // Set reset to 0 to allow change to last position
        reset = 0;
    }
}

onStop:

@Override
protected void onStop() {
    super.onStop();
    if(adapter != null) {
        adapter.stopListening();
        // Set position
        index = mListView.getFirstVisiblePosition();
        View v = mListView.getChildAt(0);
        top = (v == null) ? 0 : (v.getTop() - mListView.getPaddingTop());
        // Save position to SharedPrefs
        SharedPreferences sharedPref = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(this);
        sharedPref.edit().putInt("TOP_POSITION" + "", top).apply();
        sharedPref.edit().putInt("INDEX_POSITION" + "", index).apply();
    }
}

Since I also had to solve this for FirebaseRecyclerAdapter I'm posting the solution here for that too:

Before onCreate:

private int reset;
private int top;
private int index;

Inside of the FirebaseRecyclerAdapter:

@Override
public void onDataChanged() {
    // Only do this on first change, when starting
    // activity or coming back to it.
    if(reset == 0) {
        linearLayoutManager.scrollToPositionWithOffset(index, top);
        reset++;
    }
}

onStart:

@Override
protected void onStart() {
    super.onStart();
    if(adapter != null) {
        adapter.startListening();
        index = 0;
        top = 0;
        // Get position from SharedPrefs
        SharedPreferences sharedPref = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(this);
        top = sharedPref.getInt("TOP_POSITION", 0);
        index = sharedPref.getInt("INDEX_POSITION", 0);
        // Set reset to 0 to allow change to last position
        reset = 0;
    }
}

onStop:

@Override
protected void onStop() {
    super.onStop();
    if(adapter != null) {
        adapter.stopListening();
        // Set position
        index = linearLayoutManager.findFirstVisibleItemPosition();
        View v = linearLayoutManager.getChildAt(0);
        top = (v == null) ? 0 : (v.getTop() - linearLayoutManager.getPaddingTop());
        // Save position to SharedPrefs
        SharedPreferences sharedPref = PreferenceManager.getDefaultSharedPreferences(this);
        sharedPref.edit().putInt("TOP_POSITION" + "", top).apply();
        sharedPref.edit().putInt("INDEX_POSITION" + "", index).apply();
    }
}

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To clarify the excellent answer of Ryan Newsom and to adjust it for fragments and for the usual case that we want to navigate from a "master" ListView fragment to a "details" fragment and then back to the "master"

    private View root;
    public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container, Bundle savedInstanceState)
        {
           if(root == null){
             root = inflater.inflate(R.layout.myfragmentid,container,false);
             InitializeView(); 
           } 
           return root; 
        }

    public void InitializeView()
    {
        ListView listView = (ListView)root.findViewById(R.id.listviewid);
        BaseAdapter adapter = CreateAdapter();//Create your adapter here
        listView.setAdpater(adapter);
        //other initialization code
    }

The "magic" here is that when we navigate back from the details fragment to the ListView fragment, the view is not recreated, we don't set the ListView's adapter, so everything stays as we left it!

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