Saving EditText content in RecyclerView

Question

I have list item with EditText in it, I don't know how many items there will be. I have a problem when I enter some text in EditText, and then scroll down a RecyclerView, after I've scroll up again there is no text in my first EditText.

I am wondering what, and where should I write code so that while the user is typing or finished typing (I was thinking to do that with a TextWatcher) in the EditText the text gets saved into into a file (I'll save it in a .txt file in the external storage)

Am I supposed to do so in the onCreate method of the activity or in the adapter class or elsewhere?

Here is some code

Main Activity code

 public class MainActivity extends Activity {

    RecyclerView mRecyclerView;
    MyAdapter mAdapter;
    String[] mDataSet= new String[20];
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        // generating text for editText Views
        for (int i = 0; i<=19; i++){
        mDataSet[i]= "EditText n: "+i;

    }
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

        mRecyclerView = (RecyclerView) findViewById(R.id.recycler_view);
        mAdapter = new MyAdapter(mDataSet);
        mRecyclerView.setLayoutManager(new LinearLayoutManager(this, LinearLayoutManager.VERTICAL, false));
        mRecyclerView.setItemAnimator(new DefaultItemAnimator());
        mRecyclerView.setAdapter(mAdapter);
        mRecyclerView.setHasFixedSize(true);
    }

My adapter code

public class MyAdapter extends RecyclerView.Adapter<MyAdapter.ViewHolder> {

private String[] mDataset;


public static class ViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder {
    // each data item is just a string in this case
    public EditText mEditText;

    public ViewHolder(View v) {
        super(v);

        mEditText = (EditText) v.findViewById(R.id.list_item_edittext);
    }
}

public MyAdapter(String[] myDataset) {
    mDataset = myDataset;
}

@Override
public MyAdapter.ViewHolder onCreateViewHolder(ViewGroup parent,
                                                 int viewType) {

    View v = LayoutInflater.from(parent.getContext())
            .inflate(R.layout.list_item, parent, false);

    ViewHolder vh = new ViewHolder(v);
    return vh;
}

@Override
public void onBindViewHolder(ViewHolder holder,  final int position) {
    holder.mEditText.setText(mDataset[position]);

    //without this addtextChangedListener my code works fine ovbiusly
    // not saving the content of the edit Text when scrolled
    // If i add this code then when i scroll all textView that go of screen
    // and than come back in have messed up content
    holder.mEditText.addTextChangedListener(new TextWatcher() {

        @Override
        public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start,
                                  int before, int count) {
           //setting data to array, when changed
           // this is a semplified example in the actual app i save the text
           // in  a .txt in the external storage
           mDataset[position] = s.toString();
        }

        @Override
        public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start,
                                      int count, int after) {

        }

        @Override
        public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {

        }
    });

}

@Override
public int getItemCount() {
    return mDataset.length;
}

without this "addtextChangedListener" my code works fine obviusly not saving the content of the edit Text when scrolled. If i add this code, when i scroll all editText views that go off screen and than come back in have messed up content.

Answer 1

According to me this is more optimize of @dkarmazi's answer

public class UploadPhotoAdapter extends RecyclerView.Adapter<UploadPhotoAdapter.MyViewHolder> {
        ArrayList<Feed> feeds;
        Activity activity;
        public UploadPhotoAdapter(Activity activity, ArrayList<Feed> feeds) {
            this.feeds = feeds;
            this.activity = activity;
        }

        @Override
        public UploadPhotoAdapter.MyViewHolder onCreateViewHolder(ViewGroup parent, int viewType) {
            View itemView = LayoutInflater.from(parent.getContext()).inflate(R.layout.upload_feeds_recycler, parent, false);
            return new UploadPhotoAdapter.MyViewHolder(itemView);
        }

        @Override
        public void onBindViewHolder(final UploadPhotoAdapter.MyViewHolder holder, int position) {
            Feed feed = feeds.get(holder.getAdapterPosition());
            holder.captionEditText.setText(feed.getDescription());
            holder.captionEditText.addTextChangedListener(new TextWatcher() {
                @Override
                public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int count, int after) {}
                @Override
                public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {
                    feeds.get(holder.getAdapterPosition()).setDescription(s.toString());
                }
                @Override
                public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {}
            });
        }
        @Override
        public int getItemCount() {
            return feeds.size();
        }

        public class MyViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder {
            EditText captionEditText;
            public MyViewHolder(View view) {
                super(view);
                captionEditText = (EditText) view.findViewById(R.id.captionEditText);
            }
        }

    }

Answer 2

I had the same problem, I added the following line and it seems to have fixed the problem on my side.

mRecyclerview.setItemViewCacheSize(mDataset.size());

Hopefully this sorts out the issue on your side.

Answer 3

I would create an interface and pass the current adapter position to handle the text change event

    public class MyAdapter extends RecyclerView.Adapter<MyAdapter.ViewHolder> {

    private String[] mDataset;

    public MyAdapter(String[] myDataset) {
        mDataset = myDataset;
    }

    @Override
    public MyAdapter.ViewHolder onCreateViewHolder(ViewGroup parent,
                                                   int viewType) {
        View v = LayoutInflater.from(parent.getContext()).inflate(R.layout.list_item_edittext, parent, false);
        ViewHolder vh = new ViewHolder(v, new ViewHolder.ITextWatcher() {
            @Override
            public void beforeTextChanged(int position, CharSequence s, int start, int count, int after) {
                // do something
            }

            @Override
            public void onTextChanged(int position, CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {
                mDataset[position] = s.toString();
            }

            @Override
            public void afterTextChanged(int position, Editable s) {
                // do something
            }
        });

        return vh;
    }

    @Override
    public void onBindViewHolder(ViewHolder holder, final int position) {
        holder.mEditText.setText(mDataset[position]);
    }

    @Override
    public int getItemCount() {
        return mDataset.length;
    }


    public static class ViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder {

        public EditText mEditText;
        private ITextWatcher mTextWatcher;

        public interface ITextWatcher {
            // you can add/remove methods as you please, maybe you dont need this much
            void beforeTextChanged(int position, CharSequence s, int start, int count, int after);

            void onTextChanged(int position, CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count);

            void afterTextChanged(int position, Editable s);
        }

        public ViewHolder(View v, ITextWatcher textWatcher) {
            super(v);

            this.mEditText = (EditText) v.findViewById(R.id.editText);

            this.mTextWatcher = textWatcher;

            this.mEditText.addTextChangedListener(new TextWatcher() {
                @Override
                public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int count, int after) {
                    mTextWatcher.beforeTextChanged(getAdapterPosition(), s, start, count, after);
                }

                @Override
                public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start, int before, int count) {
                    mTextWatcher.onTextChanged(getAdapterPosition(), s, start, before, count);
                }

                @Override
                public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {
                    mTextWatcher.afterTextChanged(getAdapterPosition(), s);
                }
            });
        }
    }

}

Answer 4

Just override below method to solve the issue:

@Override
public int getItemViewType(final int position) {
    return position;
}

Answer 5

Create a String array with the size of your adapter data.

Eg: String[] texts = new String[dataSize];

on the onBindViewHolder method inside your adapter , add a TextChangedListener to the Textview.

Eg : -

@Override
    public void onBindViewHolder(Viewholder holder, int position) {

//binding data from array 
   holder.yourEditText.setText(texts [position]);
   holder.yourEditText.addTextChangedListener(new TextWatcher() {

            @Override
            public void onTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start,
                    int before, int count) {
                //setting data to array, when changed
                texts [position] = s.toString();
            }

            @Override
            public void beforeTextChanged(CharSequence s, int start,
                    int count, int after) {
                //blank
            }

            @Override
            public void afterTextChanged(Editable s) {
                //blank
            }
        });


}

Answer 6

I'm not that familiar with RecyclerView objects, but I had the same issue with ListView. For those ones, I usually create an ad-hoc class representing values inserted into my views (it works with EditTexts, Checkboxes, RadioButtons...) and get updated data through them. I then create a custom ArrayAdapter consisting of said container objects, retrieving values to put into the edittexts at every getView() callback from them and implementing a textwatcher to keep these objects up to date. Again, I don't exactly remember how RecyclerViews work, but if they involve Adapters, this could be a good hack for you to try.