I'm setting a TextView with the id @android:id/empty to display a message when there are no items in the ListView. However, this TextView gets displayed even if there are items in the ListView, right before the items show up.

How can I make it such that it only gets displayed when there are no elements in the ListView?

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

<ListView
    android:id="@android:id/list"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:dividerHeight="1dp" >
</ListView>

<TextView 
    android:id="@android:id/empty"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="@string/empty_list" />

</LinearLayout>

PS: I'm using a Loader and a SimpleCursorAdapter with a ListFragment.

• android
• android-listview

I'm guessing you are using a regular Fragment or Activity with a ListView inside of it. If you are, you must add the empty layout to the ListView manually.

E.g.

ListView lv = (ListView)findViewById(android.R.id.list);
TextView emptyText = (TextView)findViewById(android.R.id.empty);
lv.setEmptyView(emptyText);

Then your ListView will automatically use this view when its adapter is empty

If you are using a ListActivity you do not need to call setEmptyView() on the ListView since the ListActivity automatically manages that for you.

Set a TextView and assign to it whatever you want to display when the ListView is empty:

ProjectListAdapter projectListAdapter = new ProjectListAdapter();
TextView empty=(TextView)findViewById(R.id.empty);
projectsListView.setEmptyView(empty);

And in my xml file we write the below code

<TextView
      android:id="@+id/empty"
      android:layout_width="match_parent"
      android:layout_height="wrap_content"
      android:layout_gravity="center"
      android:gravity="center"
      android:text="Your text here"
      android:textColor="#FFFFFF" />

I had this problem. You have to set the emptyView explicitly in your code.

Change your TextView:

<TextView 
    android:id="@+id/emptyResults"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="@string/empty_list" />

Then in the onCreate():

listViewResults = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.list);
listViewResults.setEmptyView((LinearLayout) findViewById(R.id.emptyResults)); 

This code above assumes your ListView is in a LinearLayout.

I used ListFragment and had the same issue. I tried all variants from this answers, but the problem wasn't solved.

So I found my variant, to override setEmptyText():

public class NewsFragment extends ListFragment{
    private TextView emptyText;

    @Override
    public View onCreateView(LayoutInflater inflater, ViewGroup container,
        Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        //...

        emptyText = (TextView)view.findViewById(android.R.id.empty);

        //...
    }

    @Override
    public void setEmptyText(CharSequence text) {
        emptyText.setText(text);
    }
}

Hope it will be helpful for somebody.

I know this is kind of late, but for it to work from XML, you need to put a weight on your ListView and have your TextView match_parent

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

<ListView
    android:id="@android:id/list"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="0dp"
    android:layout_weight="1"
    android:dividerHeight="1dp" >
</ListView>

<TextView 
    android:id="@android:id/empty"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:text="@string/empty_list" />

</LinearLayout>

There's a good example of how to do it which works awesome:

When you want to show a message to the user when the ListView is empty, you have to keep in mind the following 3 steps:

• In the xml where the ListView is declared, create a TextView (the TextView can be inside a LinearLayout if you want) right below the ListView
• Set the TextView’s id as “emptyElement”
• And inside the activity, set the setEmptyView() property to the ListView

1- Create an xml which will hold the ListView and name it “my_activity” and an activity called “MyActivity”.

2. Now, in the just created xml “my_activity”, you will have to set the ListView. And right below the ListView, you will have to add a TextView. This will be used to display the empty message.

Important: The TextView must have as id the following name: “emptyElement”. This name is mandatory. The message won’t be displayed if you use another name.

This is how “my_activity” xml should look like:

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    tools:context=".MyActivity">

    <ListView
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:id="@+id/listView"/>

    <TextView android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:id="@+id/emptyElement"
        android:text="The list is empty"
        android:textStyle="bold"
        android:textSize="15sp"
        android:visibility="gone"
        android:layout_centerInParent="true"
          android:textColor="@android:color/darker_gray"/>

</RelativeLayout>

3. Create an xml for displaying items (when the list is not empty), and name it “list_item”.

   <TextView android:layout_width="wrap_content"
       android:layout_height="wrap_content"
       android:id="@+id/list_item_text_view"
       android:textSize="20sp"
       android:padding="10dp"
       android:layout_marginLeft="5dp"/>
   

4. Create a new Java class for the custom adapter which will be used by the ListView and name “MyCustomAdapter”. The code for the adapter is written below:

   import android.content.Context;
   import android.view.LayoutInflater;
   import android.view.View;
   import android.view.ViewGroup;
   import android.widget.BaseAdapter;
   import android.widget.TextView;
   import java.util.ArrayList;
   
   
   public class MyCustomAdapter extends BaseAdapter {
   private ArrayList<String> mListItems;
   private LayoutInflater mLayoutInflater;
   
   public MyCustomAdapter(Context context, ArrayList<String> arrayList){
   
       mListItems = arrayList;
   
       //get the layout inflater
       mLayoutInflater = (LayoutInflater) context.getSystemService(Context.LAYOUT_INFLATER_SERVICE);
   }
   
   @Override
   public int getCount() {
       //getCount() represents how many items are in the list
       return mListItems.size();
   }
   
   @Override
   //get the data of an item from a specific position
   //i represents the position of the item in the list
   public Object getItem(int i) {
       return null;
   }
   
   @Override
   //get the position id of the item from the list
   public long getItemId(int i) {
       return 0;
   }
   
   @Override
   
   public View getView(int position, View view, ViewGroup viewGroup) {
   
       // create a ViewHolder reference
       ViewHolder holder;
   
       //check to see if the reused view is null or not, if is not null then reuse it
       if (view == null) {
           holder = new ViewHolder();
   
           view = mLayoutInflater.inflate(R.layout.list_item, null);
           holder.itemName = (TextView) view.findViewById(R.id.list_item_text_view);
   
           // the setTag is used to store the data within this view
           view.setTag(holder);
       } else {
           // the getTag returns the viewHolder object set as a tag to the view
           holder = (ViewHolder)view.getTag();
       }
   
       //get the string item from the position "position" from array list to put it on the TextView
       String stringItem = mListItems.get(position);
       if (stringItem != null) {
           if (holder.itemName != null) {
               //set the item name on the TextView
               holder.itemName.setText(stringItem);
           }
       }
   
       //this method must return the view corresponding to the data at the specified position.
       return view;
   
   }
   
   /**
    * Static class used to avoid the calling of "findViewById" every time the getView() method is called,
    * because this can impact to your application performance when your  list is too big. The class is static so it
    * cache all the things inside once it's created.
    */
   private static class ViewHolder {
   
       protected TextView itemName;
   
   }
   }
   

5. Now go to MyActivity class and add the code below:

   import android.app.Activity;
   import android.os.Bundle;
   import android.widget.ListView; 
   import java.util.ArrayList;
   import java.util.List;
   
   
   public class MyActivity extends Activity {
   
   @Override
   protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
       super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
       setContentView(R.layout.my_activity);
   
       ListView listView = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.listView);
   
       // Create an empty array list of strings
       List<String> items = new ArrayList<String>();
   
       // Set the adapter
       MyCustomAdapter adapter = new MyCustomAdapter(items);
       listView.setAdapter(adapter);
   
       // Set the emptyView to the ListView
       listView.setEmptyView(findViewById(R.id.emptyElement));
    }
    }