Android Academy · Lesson

RecyclerView Click Events

Handle item clicks and long presses in RecyclerView, pass click listeners to adapters, and navigate to a detail screen on item tap.

Making List Items Clickable

RecyclerView doesn't have a built-in click listener like ListView did. You add click listeners inside the Adapter.

The recommended pattern: pass a lambda (callback) to the Adapter's constructor. When an item is tapped, the Adapter calls the lambda with the selected item — the Activity handles what happens next.

Adapter with Click Callback

Add an onItemClick lambda parameter to the Adapter:

class FruitAdapter(
    private val fruits: List<Fruit>,
    private val onItemClick: (Fruit) -> Unit
) : RecyclerView.Adapter<FruitAdapter.ViewHolder>() {

    class ViewHolder(view: View) : RecyclerView.ViewHolder(view) {
        val tvName: TextView = view.findViewById(R.id.tvName)
        val tvCalories: TextView = view.findViewById(R.id.tvCalories)
    }

    override fun onCreateViewHolder(parent: ViewGroup, viewType: Int): ViewHolder {
        val view = LayoutInflater.from(parent.context)
            .inflate(R.layout.item_fruit, parent, false)
        return ViewHolder(view)
    }

    override fun onBindViewHolder(holder: ViewHolder, position: Int) {
        val fruit = fruits[position]
        holder.tvName.text = fruit.name
        holder.tvCalories.text = "${fruit.calories} kcal"
        // Set click listener on the whole item
        holder.itemView.setOnClickListener {
            onItemClick(fruit)
        }
    }

    override fun getItemCount() = fruits.size
}

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