What is the best way to insert a layout between recyclerview rows in Android. (Kotlin)

Issue

I am writing a small social media app. I am loading my posts from a Rest Api. But in between the posts I would like to add some independent layouts what is the best way to do it?

eg the content of my recyclerView will be

Post

Post

Post

Some custom layout eg ask user for feedback

Post

Post

Suggest groups

Post

Post

Some custom Advert

Post

Post

I have tried looking at concatAdapter but it is mainly for sequential adapters.

Is there a way to inject a layout in between recyclerview Items. eg You add a layout between items at position 4 and 5 in the recyclerview.

Solution

RecylerView supports different view types, so you have to create a model that encompass the 2 types and then map your BE data to your user interface model.

1.- Create the layouts:

• R.layout.post
• R.layout.user_feedback

We are going to use the ids later

2.- Create a model to support everything

sealed class Rows {
    data class UiPost(...) : Rows()
    data class UserFeedback(...): Rows()

}

3. Make your adapter support different views

class UiPostViewHolder : RecyclerView.ViewHolder()...

class UserFeedbackViewHolder : RecyclerView.ViewHolder()...

class MyAdapter : ListAdapter<Rows, ViewHolder> {
     
     override fun getItemView(position: Int) = when (getItem(position)) {
          UiPost -> R.layout.post
          UserFeedback -> R.layout.user_feedback
     }

      override fun onCreateViewHolder(...) {
          return when(viewType) {
              R.layout.post -> //instance the UiPostViewHolder
              R.layout.user_feedback -> //inflate the view holder
          }
      }

}

4.- And you need a way to map your posts from BE to your new data structure, something like this

val mutableList = mutableList<Rows>()
backendPosts.forEach {
    mutableList.add(UiPost(it.something, it.foo...))
    if (it.confition) {
         mutableList.add(UserFeedback(it..., it....))
    }
}
return mutableList

Answered By - cutiko