Strategies for Creating A Single RecyclerView with Multiple ViewHolders

This article assumes familiarity with creating a RecyclerView using a single ViewHolder for each item, which is the most common use case.

Here are the possible cases where a RecyclerView might use an adapter with multiple ViewHolders instead:

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Case 1

Here’s the general method. I’m only listing areas that differ from the usual case of RecyclerView with just one ViewHolder:

1. We now have to create the multiple ViewHolder classes first. I prefer them to be inner classes of the custom RecyclerView.Adapter class. Pretty self-explanatory, the only possible gotcha/oddity here is that inside the class’s constructor, we create variables that directly access specific views inside a certain layout, without the class knowing about which layout it is related to.
2. The RecyclerView adapter now must extend the more generic RecyclerView.Adapter<RecyclerView.ViewHolder>class instead of using the single custom ViewHolder class as the generic type.
3. The RecyclerView now must override getItemViewType(), which is used to decide which ViewHolder class to be used on a certain item position in the RecyclerView.
4. The method onCreateViewHolder() must now return the more generic RecyclerView.ViewHolder
5. The method onBindViewHolder() must now use the more generic RecyclerView.ViewHolder object as its first parameter.

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Case 2

1. Have a variable to determine which ViewHolder should be used by the RecylerView. This will usually be inside the fragment or activity.
2. Pass that variable as one of the parameters for constructing the RecyclerView’s adapter.
3. Inside the adapter, create the multiple ViewHolder classes first. I prefer them to be inner classes of the custom RecyclerView.Adapter class. Pretty self-explanatory, the only possible gotcha/oddity here is that inside the class’s constructor, we create variables that directly access specific views inside a certain layout, without the class knowing about which layout it is related to.
4. The RecyclerView adapter now must extend the more generic RecyclerView.Adapter<RecyclerView.ViewHolder>class instead of using the single custom ViewHolder class as the generic type.
5. The RecyclerView adapter now must override getItemViewType(), and check the variable from step 2 to determine which ViewHolder to use.
6. The method onCreateViewHolder() must now return the more generic RecyclerView.ViewHolder
7. The method onBindViewHolder() must now use the more generic RecyclerView.ViewHolder object as its first parameter.