How to achieve a custom layout with varying number of items per row in RecyclerView?

Question

I am working on an Android project where I have a RecyclerView that needs to display items in a custom layout. The layout requirements are as follows:

The first two rows should have two items each. Subsequent rows should have three items each. I have tried implementing a custom GridLayoutManager and using item decoration, but I'm unable to achieve the desired layout. I have also reviewed the official documentation and existing examples, but they don't cover this specific scenario. Can anyone provide guidance or sample code on how to implement this custom layout with varying number of items per row in a RecyclerView? Any help would be greatly appreciated.enter image description here

I attempted to use a GridLayoutManager and set the span count dynamically based on the number of items per row. However, this approach didn't produce the expected results.

Answer 1

There may be a couple of way to achieve this. One way is to use the getItemViewType callback of the RecyclerView. For example, determine the viewType according to the position as below.

    override fun getItemViewType(position: Int): Int {
     return if (position == 0 || position == 1) 0 else 1
    }

Then, inflate different layout files according to the viewType as below.

    override fun onCreateViewHolder(parent: ViewGroup, viewType: Int): ViewHolder {
    val view = when(viewType) {
      0 -> {
        // TODO: Inflate layout for first two rows
      }
      else -> {
        // TODO: Inflate layout for other rows
      }
    }
    return ViewHolder(view)
}

And in the onBindViewHolder fill the view items as below.

    override fun onBindViewHolder(holder: ViewHolder, position: Int) {
    
    if (position == 0 || position == 1) {
        
    } else {
        
    }