Recyclerview Horizontal Span And Spacing Issues

So this is what im trying to achieve, is a recycler view with a 3x3 grid and when items exceed the 3x3 ,they spill into the next screen/page. So ive used a recyclerview with horizo

Solution 1:

Why is the recyclerview items populated in vertical fashion?

1 4
2 5
3 6

A RecyclerView is intended for Lists that scroll. If you have a horizontal layout, it will fill the first column, followed by the second, then the third, etc. After all, that's how we would expect a list to work. And that's why the "numbering is off". It starts with the first column, going on to the next once it is filled.

When my item count is 6 , how do i avoid the space between the rows?

I don't know your setup, but I'm guessing your recyclerviews height is set to match_parent, so it's probably just using up all the available height. wrap_content height for the recyclerview might help.

When my items are say 4 ,i want to show my items as

1 2 3
4

or

1 3 4
2

Again, see above, that's not how a RecyclerView works. It will always fill the columns one by one, and not start with a row. 4 Items with a column count of 2 will always fill the first columns first, like below.

1 3
2 4

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A RecyclerView might not fit all your needs. You could switch to a vertical grid layout with 3 columns with less than 9 items. That way it would not scroll horizontally, and it would even fill the views up like you described. For more than 9 items you'd still show the horizontal version and have it scroll.

What you're actually describing is a custom layout: You want a view that behaves in a specific fashion. You could have a look on how to create your own ViewGroup and use that to lay out all the views however you like. Unless you want to show long lists, that might be a good alternative option.