List view snap to item

Utilizing a couple ideas from @nininho's solution, I got my listview to snap to the item with a smooth scroll instead of abruptly going to it. One caveat is that I've only tested this solution on a Moto X in a basic ListView with text, but it works very well on the device. Nevertheless, I'm confident about this solution, and encourage you to provide feedback.

listview.setOnScrollListener(new OnScrollListener() {
        @Override
        public void onScrollStateChanged(AbsListView view, int scrollState) {
            // TODO Auto-generated method stub
            if (scrollState == SCROLL_STATE_IDLE) {
                View itemView = view.getChildAt(0);
                int top = Math.abs(itemView.getTop());
                int bottom = Math.abs(itemView.getBottom());
                int scrollBy = top >= bottom ? bottom : -top;
                if (scrollBy == 0) {
                    return;
                }
                smoothScrollDeferred(scrollBy, (ListView)view);
            }
        }

        private void smoothScrollDeferred(final int scrollByF,
                final ListView viewF) {
            final Handler h = new Handler();
            h.post(new Runnable() {

                @Override
                public void run() {
                    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
                    viewF.smoothScrollBy(scrollByF, 200);
                }
            });
        }

        @Override
        public void onScroll(AbsListView view, int firstVisibleItem,
                int visibleItemCount, int totalItemCount) {
            // TODO Auto-generated method stub

        }
    });

The reason I defer the smooth scrolling is because in my testing, directly calling the smoothScrollBy method in the state changed callback had problems actually scrolling. Also, I don't foresee a fully-tested, robust solution holding very much state, and in my solution below, I hold no state at all. This solution is not yet in the Google Play Store, but should serve as a good starting point.


I've found a way to do this just listening to scroll and change the position when the scroll ended by implementing ListView.OnScrollListener

@Override
public void onScrollStateChanged(AbsListView view, int scrollState) {
    switch (scrollState) {
    case OnScrollListener.SCROLL_STATE_IDLE:
        if (scrolling){
            // get first visible item
            View itemView = view.getChildAt(0);
            int top = Math.abs(itemView.getTop()); // top is a negative value
            int bottom = Math.abs(itemView.getBottom());
            if (top >= bottom){
                ((ListView)view).setSelectionFromTop(view.getFirstVisiblePosition()+1, 0);
            } else {
                ((ListView)view).setSelectionFromTop(view.getFirstVisiblePosition(), 0);
            }
        }
        scrolling = false;
        break;
    case OnScrollListener.SCROLL_STATE_TOUCH_SCROLL:
    case OnScrollListener.SCROLL_STATE_FLING:
        Log.i("TEST", "SCROLLING");
        scrolling = true;
        break;
    }
}

The change is not so smooth but it works.