Add space to the end of the RecyclerView

Issue

I have a recyclerview with a gridlayout. What I want is when the user scrolls to the end of the list (see my bad mockup), there should be an empty space with a height of 50dp, which isn't the same dimensions as my grid.

Note that this space is only visible at the very end end, as I do not want to change the layout. I could make it so that the recycerview has a margin bottom of 50dp, but I do not want to do that.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:fab="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent">

    <android.support.v7.widget.RecyclerView
        xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
        android:id="@+id/recyclerView"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        tools:context=".MainActivity"
        android:scrollbars="vertical"
        />

</RelativeLayout>

Solution

This is best achieved with an item decoration.

Here's an example that works with a LinearLayoutManager - you'll have to adjust to suit for your Grid layout. What it does is checks each item to see if it's the last one, and if it is it adds the offset to the bottom of it. For a Grid layout, the hard part is figuring out whether your item position is in the last row or not.

// After setting layout manager, adapter, etc...
float offsetPx = getResources().getDimension(R.dimen.bottom_offset_dp);
BottomOffsetDecoration bottomOffsetDecoration = new BottomOffsetDecoration((int) offsetPx);
mRecyclerView.addItemDecoration(bottomOffsetDecoration);

...

static class BottomOffsetDecoration extends RecyclerView.ItemDecoration {
    private int mBottomOffset;

    public BottomOffsetDecoration(int bottomOffset) {
        mBottomOffset = bottomOffset;
    }

    @Override
    public void getItemOffsets(Rect outRect, View view, RecyclerView parent, RecyclerView.State state) {
        super.getItemOffsets(outRect, view, parent, state);
        int dataSize = state.getItemCount();
        int position = parent.getChildAdapterPosition(view);
        if (dataSize > 0 && position == dataSize - 1) {
            outRect.set(0, 0, 0, mBottomOffset);
        } else {
            outRect.set(0, 0, 0, 0);
        }

    }
}

For a GridLayoutManager, inside the getItemOffsets method you could do something similar to this to figure out if it's the last row:

GridLayoutManager grid = (GridLayoutManager)parent.getLayoutManager();
if ((dataSize - position) <= grid.getSpanCount()) {
    outRect.set(0, 0, 0, mBottomOffset);
} else {
    outRect.set(0, 0, 0, 0);
}

Answered By - Adam S