Android: disabling highlight on listView click

Question

I want to disable the orange highlight that occurs when touching a listView row. So far in my xml I have tried the following:

android:focusable="false"
android:focusableInTouchMode="false"
android:clickable="false"

More information: I want there to be zero difference when a user touches the screen on this listView object.

Nittygritty

Answer 1

Add this to your xml:

android:listSelector="@android:color/transparent"

And for the problem this may work (I'm not sure and I don't know if there are better solutions):

You could apply a ColorStateList to your TextView.

Anallese

if transparent still darkens the selection a little, perhaps it's not defined as completely transparent. Try #00000000 instead, this is totally invisible. – Schwenk

Perfect solution for me. I've tried setting a transparent selector XML drawable for the background of the listviews surrounding layout but this lead to the aforementioned orange bar on ICS devices. – Limpet

@Anallese I use a Fragment for the list. The XML layout contains a LinearLayout and multiple TextView items. Where should I disable the row highlight, please? – Allimportant

From Java Code, you can do listView.setSelector(android.R.color.transparent); – Everglades

@Anallese -> "You could apply a ColorStateList to your TextView" - this is a good option, if the list rows are not clickable. As soon as the textview is clickable, the onClick event of the list itself will not fire. – Arroyo

Other code alternative would be listView.setSelector(new ColorDrawable(0)); – Irrelevant

Strangely, setting android:listSelector to @null did not work. I had to explicitly set to @android:color/transparent to get rid of the yellow selected state drawable. – Iou

This should be the accepted answer. It actually answers the question with code rather than giving references to fix it. – Thorr

Couldn't get it to work without android:cacheColorHint="@android:color/transparent" from Mushtaq answer – Altdorf

I tried everything in a PreferenceActivity, but none of those worked. Can somebody help me? It is fustrating to get always that orange selector. – Marriott

i am geeting frustrated because this line of code was working fine since last year now i edit some code than it stop working, i did contro +z also, but now this code is is not working – Vesuvianite

above solution worked 50% but ImageView gets highlighted. For example, If listview has each view with ImageView's as edit button and delete button. Clicking on a specific view, ImageView gets highlighted. – Endoenzyme

Answer 2

RoflcoptrException's answer should do the trick,but for some reason it did not work for me, So I am posting the solution which worked for me, hope it helps someone

<ListView 
android:listSelector="@android:color/transparent" 
android:cacheColorHint="@android:color/transparent"
/>

Tote

Answer 3

The orange highlight effect is a style on the ListView. This article gives a good overview of how to override the listView style.

Essentially, you have a selector that specifies different style elements based on the current state.

see this for short and quick solution https://mcmap.net/q/99143/-android-disabling-highlight-on-listview-click

Slit

Will this method allow me to have a different style for each listView object? Also, is it possible to avoid the issue I brought up in Sebi's answer? – Nittygritty

Yes, you can override any style attributes. You can specifically assign a style to each ListView using the style="@style/MyStyle" attribute as described in the first link. – Slit

I am sorry but this shouldn't be the answer. Changing the listSelector should be it. – Possible

Answer 4

From ListView: Disable Focus Highlight:

When you set your ListAdapter use the following code:

ListAdapter adapter = new SimpleCursorAdapter(MyList, Layout, c, 
                new String[] { "Name", "Score" }, to) 
{ 
    public boolean areAllItemsEnabled() 
    { 
        return false; 
    } 
    public boolean isEnabled(int position) 
    { 
        return false; 
    } 
}; 

This will override the BaseAdapter class. It also cancels the white border between cells.

Oakley

Invalid, that's disabled the selection behaviour (OnItemClicked won't fire) for the item – Virginavirginal

This is a good solution because whether a listview item is highlighted is more of a behavioral issue than an aesthetic one. So, you can use this for the listviews that you don't want to have the property of being selectable. A global style doesn't really make sense, since you know you're eventually going to want a listview that can be selected, and using styles for behavior to me seems wrong. They should not have semantic meaning, only aesthetic. The property of selectability is a semantic thing. – Beyer

Apart from that this is not the answer to this question, overriding isEnabled to disable an item is not the way to disable it! Documentation says that isEnabled is supposed to determine if an item is a separator. – Root

Answer 5

add this also to ur XMl along with listselector..hope it will work

<ListView
android:cacheColorHint="@android:color/transparent"
android:listSelector="@android:color/transparent"/> 

Evante

Many Thanks. I want to solve the problem that the whole listView is hightlighted (white color in my case) when scrolling (Only happen before Android 2.3). And It works. – Vassaux

"#00000000" and "@android:color/transparent" for kind of variety? – Photooffset

@Photooffset ya in 2011 I was letting people know it works both ways... Definitely today you wont need #000000 – Evante

Answer 6

If you are using ArrayAdapter or BaseAdapter to populate the list items. Override the isEnabled method and return false.

 @Override
  public boolean isEnabled (int position) {
    return false;
  }

Bellew

Answer 7

After a few 'google'ing and testing on virtual and real devices, I notice my below code works:

ArrayAdapter<String> myList = new ArrayAdapter<String>(this, R.layout.list_item, strText) {
    public boolean isEnabled(int position) 
    { 
            return false; 
    } 
};

notice that I've omitted the areAllItemsEnabled() portion.

Atmosphere

this worked for me . however , doesn't it mean that if there is a drawable for the rows that has the disabled state , it will also change their image ? is it possible to disable clicking and yet not change the drawable ? – Madiemadigan

This has a side effect causing ListView not to show dividers. – Charlottcharlotta

Answer 8

Nothing helps me but this:

transparent_drawable.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>    
<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <solid android:color="#00000000"/>
</shape>

layout.xml:

android:listSelector="@drawable/transparent_drawable"

Volcanism

Answer 9

in code

listView.setSelector(getResources().getDrawable(R.drawable.transparent));

and add small transparent image to drawable folder.

Like: transparent.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>    
<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <solid android:color="#00000000"/>
</shape>

Ative

Answer 10

For me android:focusableInTouchMode="true" is the way to go. android:listSelector="@android:color/transparent" is of no use. Note that I am using a custom listview with a number of objects in each row.

Gillett

Yeah, android:focusableInTouchMode="true" allows the view respond to touch, and thus (as far as I can test) its background takes effect rather than the listView's listSelector. If its background is the default transparent then nothing is drawn. When we make a view clickable it also becomes focusableInTouchMode, and that's why clickable views get their background drawn from a possible selector like android:background="@drawable/list_selector_highlight" – Revolutionary

Answer 11

You only need to add: android:cacheColorHint="@android:color/transparent"

Homebody

Answer 12

As an alternative:

listView.setSelector(android.R.color.transparent);

or

listView.setSelector(new StateListDrawable());

Aurochs

Answer 13

There is fast and easy way to do this: In method:

private void OnItemSelected(object sender, SelectedItemChangedEventArgs e)
{
    //TODO
    ((ListView)sender).SelectedItem = null;
}

Hope it'll help ;)

Waste

This c# not java – Androgyne

I think most android programmers are still using java because that is what Android Studio supports, but C# can of cause be used. I just want to clarify that this is C# :D – Androgyne

Answer 14

If you want to disable the highlight for a single list view item, but keep the cell enabled, set the background color for that cell to disable the highlighting.

For instance, in your cell layout, set android:background="@color/white"

Undesirable

Answer 15

you can just get the pos that you get from the onItemClick and do:

listView.setItemChecked(pos, false);

that's the best way i know of

Outmost