Chips Input Layout

Updates to documentation and project are still in progress

A highly customizable Android ViewGroup for displaying Chips (specified in the Material Design Guide)!

Here's some of the core features of this library:

You can allow the user to filter chips as they type
You can allow the user to enter custom chips
You can specify if the chips show details, is deletable, or has an avatar
You can specify how the chips are managed/stored in memory
ChipsInputView can validate chips that are selected
Most views (seen in screenshots) are highly customizable
Sticks to the Material Design Guide as much as possible

Honorable Mentions:

This was based on the design of: https://github.com/pchmn/MaterialChipsInput
This uses a RecyclerView layout manager: https://github.com/BelooS/ChipsLayoutManager

Usage as Chips Input

The basic usage of this library is to allow users to input chips and for them to be displayed like in the Material Design Guide. To achieve this functionality, you'll need to use the ChipsInputLayout view.

Using in an XML layout

ChipsInputLayout can be used in any ViewGroup and supports all width and height attributes. Simple usage is shown here:

<com.tylersuehr.library.ChipsInputLayout
        android:id="@+id/chips_input"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:hint="Start typing for chips... "
        android:textColorHint="#757575"
        android:textColor="#212121"
        app:detailedChipsEnabled="true"
        app:customChipsEnabled="true"/>

Here is a table of all the XML attributes available for this view:

Attribute	Type	Summary
`android:hint`	`string`	Hint shown in the chips input.
`android:textColorHint`	`color`	Text color of the hint shown in the chips input.
`android:textColor`	`color`	Text color of chips input.
`app:detailedChipsEnabled`	`boolean`	True if clicking a chip should show its details.
`app:customChipsEnabled`	`boolean`	True if user is allowed to enter custom chips.
`app:maxRows`	`int`	Maximum number of rows used to display chips.
`app:chipTextColor`	`color`	Text color of each chips' title and subtitle.
`app:chipHasAvatarIcon`	`boolean`	True if each chip should show an avatar icon.
`app:chipDeletable`	`boolean`	True if each chip should be deletable by the user.
`app:chipDeleteIconColor`	`color`	Color of each chips' delete icon.
`app:chipBackgroundColor`	`color`	Color of each chips' background.
`app:detailedChipTextColor`	`color`	Text color of each detailed chips' title and subtitle.
`app:detailedChipBackgroundColor`	`color`	Color of each detailed chips' background.
`app:detailedChipDeleteIconColor`	`color`	Color of each detailed chips' delete icon.
`app:filterableListBackgroundColor`	`color`	Color of the filterable list's background.
`app:filterableListTextColor`	`color`	Text color of the filterable list's items.
`app:filterableListElevation`	`dimension`	Elevation of the filterable list.

Using in Java code

ChipsInputLayout can be programmatically added into any ViewGroup. Simple usage in an Activity is shown here:

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    
    ChipsInputLayout chipsInputLayout = new ChipsInputLayout(this);
    // Set any properties for chips input layout
    
    setContentView(chipsInputLayout);
}

Here is a table of all the accessible attributes available for this view:

Method	Summary
`setInputHint(CharSequence)`	Changes hint shown in the chips input.
`setInputHintTextColor(ColorStateList)`	Changes text color of the hint shown in the chips input.
`setInputTextColor(ColorStateList)`	Changes text color of chips input.
`setShowDetailedChipsEnabled(boolean)`	True if clicking a chip should show its details.
`setCustomChipsEnabled(boolean)`	True if user is allowed to enter custom chips.
`setMaxRows(int)`	Changes maximum number of rows used to display chips.
`setChipTitleTextColor(ColorStateList)`	Changes text color of each chips' title and subtitle.
`setShowChipAvatarEnabled(boolean)`	True if each chip should show an avatar icon.
`setChipsDeletable(boolean)`	True if each chip should be deletable by the user.
`setChipDeleteIconColor(ColorStateList)`	Changes color of each chips' delete icon.
`setChipBackgroundColor(ColorStateList)`	Changes color of each chips' background.
`setChipDeleteIcon(Drawable)`	Changes the each chips' delete icon.
`setChipDeleteIcon(int)`	Overload of setChipDeleteIcon(Drawable).
`setDetailedChipTextColor(ColorStateList)`	Changes text color of each detailed chips' title and subtitle.
`setDetailedChipBackgroundColor(ColorStateList)`	Changes color of each detailed chips' background.
`setDetailedChipDeleteIconColor(ColorStateList)`	Changes color of each detailed chips' delete icon.
`setFilterableListBackgroundColor(ColorStateList)`	Changes color of the filterable list's background.
`setFilterableListTextColor(ColorStateList)`	Changes text color of the filterable list's items.
`setFilterableListElevation(float)`	Changes elevation of the filterable list.

How to use the chips

There are a plethora of ways you can manipulate chips in ChipsInputLayout. However, the main abilities afforded by ChipsInputLayout are that you can set a list of chips that can be filtered by user input and set a list of chips that are pre-selected. Other features are listed in the table below.

Using a chip

Chip is the base object needed for ChipsInputLayout, and associated components in the library, to work properly. ChipsInputLayout can work with anything that is a Chip. So, that means that you can create any type of 'chip' data you want... simply inherit the Chip class and you're good to go!

Here's a small example:

public class CoolChip extends Chip {
    private final String coolName;
    private final Uri coolPic;
    
    public CoolChip(String coolName, Uri coolPic) {
        this.coolName = coolName;
        this.coolPic = coolPic;
    }
    
    Override
    public String getTitle() {
        return coolName;
    }
    
    @Override
    public Uri getAvatarUri() {
        return coolPic;
    }
    
    // ...other chip methods that are required to implement
}

Setting a filterable list of chips

ChipsInputLayout supports the ability to show/hide a list of chips that are filterable as the user inputs text into it. To use this feature, simply call setFilterableChipList(List) in ChipsInputLayout.

Not calling setFilterableChipList(List) will imply you don't wish to use that feature, therefore, ChipsInputLayout, will not show/hide the filterable list as the user inputs text.

Here is a simple example:

@Override
protected void onCreate(List<ContactChip> chips) {
    // ...Cool onCreate stuff in activity
    
    ChipsInputLayout chipsInput = (ChipsInputLayout)findViewById(R.id.chips_input);
    
    // ...Cool logic to acquire chips
    List<AwesomeChip> chips = getReallyCoolChips();
        
    this.chipsInput.setFilterableChipList(chips);
}

Setting a pre-selected list of chips:

ChipsInputLayout supports the ability to set an already-selected list of chips. To use this feature, simply call setSelectedChipList(List) in ChipsInputLayout.

Here is a simple example:

@Override
protected void onCreate(List<ContactChip> chips) {
    // ...Cool onCreate stuff in activity
    
    ChipsInputLayout chipsInput = (ChipsInputLayout)findViewById(R.id.chips_input);
    
    // ...Cool logic to acquire chips
    List<TagChip> defaultChips = getDefaultTagChips();
        
    this.chipsInput.setSelectedChipList(chips);
}

Managing Chips

Where this library capitalizes, is how it decentralizes where and how the selected and filterable chips are stored. This makes accessing and receiving updates to data source changes from various Android components really simple.

All chips are managed by, ChipDataSource, which is an abstraction to decouple the concrete implementation of how the abstract methods manage the chips. This means that other implementations of ChipDataSource can be made at your own leisure. Currently, there is no method on ChipsInputLayout to programmatically change the data source; however, these will be future additions to the library.

The current default implementation of ChipDataSource is ListChipDataSource, and it uses ArrayList as the list implementation for selected and filtered chip lists.

Observing chip selection changes

ChipDataSource has the ability to notify observers that want to observe specific chip selection events in ChipDataSource. The observers will be notified if a chip has been selected or unselected from the selected chip list in ChipDataSource. Both selection and deselection events will afford the chip that was selected or deselected respectively.

To use this functionality, you'll want to implement the ChipSelectionObserver and register it on ChipDataSource. Be sure to manage unregistering the observer, if need be, as well.

Since components outside of the library cannot, and should not, directly access ChipDataSouce, you'll use ChipsInputLayout to set the observer; using its setChipSelectionObserver(ChipSelectionObserver) method.

Here is a simple example:

public class CoolActivity extends AppCompatActivity implements ChipSelectionObserver {
    @Override
    protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_cool);
        
        // Get the ChipsInputLayout from the layout file
        ChipsInputLayout chipsInput = (ChipsInputLayout)findViewById(R.id.chips);
        chipsInput.setChipSelectionObserver(this);
    }
    
    @Override
    public void onChipSelected(Chip selectedChip) {
        // Cool chip selection stuff here...
    }
    
    @Override
    public void onChipUnselected(Chip unselectedChip) {
        // Cool chip unselection stuff here...
    }
}

Observing any change to the chip data source

ChipDataSource has the ability to notify observers that want to observe any type of change to the data in ChipDataSource. The observers will be notified if a chip has been added or removed from either the selected or filtered lists in the ChipDataSource; however, there's no information about the event though.

This is used internally by the library to trigger UI updates on RecyclerView adapters when the data has changed.

Currently, ChipsInputLayout, does not have a method to set this type of observer on the ChipDataSource because this is for internal components of the library. However, this may be an addition to the library, if needed\requested, in the future.

To use this functionality, you'll want to implement the ChipChangedObserver and register it on ChipDataSource. Be sure to manage unregistering the observer, if need be, as well.

Here is a simple example:

public class CoolAdapter extends RecyclerView.Adapter<RecyclerView.ViewHolder> implements ChipChangedObserver {
    public CoolAdapter(ChipDataSource dataSource) {
        dataSource.addChipChangedObserver(this);
    }
    
    // adapter implementation to do really cool adapter stuff...
    
    @Override
    public void onChipDataSourceChanged() {
        // This example would just update the Recycler when the chip data source changes
        notifyDataSetChanged();
    }
}

kaven-lee/chips-input-layout

Chips Input Layout

Usage as Chips Input

Using in an XML layout

Using in Java code

How to use the chips

Using a chip

Setting a filterable list of chips

Setting a pre-selected list of chips:

Managing Chips

Observing chip selection changes

Observing any change to the chip data source