Android Data Binding: visibility on include tag

As per http://developer.android.com/tools/data-binding/guide.html#imports, we can have such simple expressions in visibility:

<TextView
..
android:visibility="@{user.isAdult ? View.VISIBLE : View.GONE}"/>

But when I try to do the same in an include tag, like so:

<include
android:id="@+id/image_layout"
layout="@layout/image_layout"
android:visibility="@{notification.notifType == 0 ? View.VISIBLE : View.GONE}"/>

Then Studio not only shows the expression in red, but upon building it gives the following error in the auto-generated binding class:

> Error:(138, 29) error: cannot find symbol method setVisibility(int)

Here's where the error occurs in the auto-generated binding class

// batch finished
if ((dirtyFlags & 0x3L) != 0) {
    // api target 1
    this.imageLayout.setVisibility(NotifTypeNotificatio1);
}
imageLayout.executePendingBindings();

I imagine what you are trying to do would look something like this:

In the layout you are including, specify a boolean variable and bind it to the desired view's visibility

<layout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

    <data>

        <import type="android.view.View"/>

        <variable
            name="isVisible"
            type="boolean"/>

    </data>

    <ImageView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:visibility="@{isVisible ? View.VISIBLE : View.GONE}"/>

</layout>

Then In your calling layout bind your value

<include
    android:id="@+id/image_layout"
    layout="@layout/image_layout"
    bind:isVisible="@{notification.notifType == 0}"/>

Try:

this.imageLayout.getRoot().setVisibility(NotifTypeNotificatio1);

You are able to pass all necessary parameters from parent xml into included xml via "http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto" namespace.

The syntax is <res-auto_namespace>:<variable_name> e.g. app:isVisible

For example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<layout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">

    <android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent">

        <include
            layout="@layout/include_user_image"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="match_parent"
            app:isVisible="@{true}" />

    </android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout>
</layout>

include_user_image.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<layout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

    <data>

        <import type="android.view.View" />

        <variable
            name="isVisible"
            type="boolean" />

    </data>

    <ImageView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:visibility="@{isVisible ? View.VISIBLE : View.GONE}" />
</layout>

This is a bit late, but I have run across this recently.

I believe this is actually a bug in the Data Binding compiler as it is possible to set android:visibility attribute on <include> tag directly (ie. without Databinding).

A better way.

On the top layout, declare the boolean or an observable field whose value toggle the visibility of the included layout. Then remember to give the included layout an id else it wont work

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<layout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools">
    <data>
        <import type="android.view.View"/>
        <variable
            name="show"
            type="Boolean" />
    </data>
    <androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        tools:background="@color/colorPrimary">


        <include layout="@layout/progress"
            android:id="@+id/progress"
            android:visibility="@{show?View.VISIBLE:View.GONE}"/>

    </androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout>
</layout>

Best Way

1. You can directly pass Integer value of visibility like.
2. You can set default value of visibility also by setting default=gone in binding.

For example this is included_layout.xml

<layout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

    <data>

        <variable
            name="visibility"
            type="int"/>

    </data>

    <ImageView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:visibility="@{visibility, default=gone}"
        />

</layout>

and use like

<layout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

    <data>

      <import type="android.view.View"/>

    </data>

   <include
     android:id="@+id/included_layout"
     layout="@layout/included_layout"
     app:visibility="@{View.VISIBLE}"/>

</layout>

Data binding is not needed, instead get a reference to the root view of the <include> layout and set its visibility. For example,

binding.myIncludeLayout.root.visibility = View.VISIBLE

To provide visibility in include tag, you need to convert the included layout to data-binding even though no data is passed on included layout.

<layout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">

    <data>

    </data>
    <LinearLayout
        android:id="@+id/myblock"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:background="@color/main_bg_alternative"
        android:orientation="vertical"
        android:paddingTop="15dp"
        android:paddingBottom="20dp">
    <ImageView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>
   <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:text="@string/hello"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>
   </LinearLayout>
</layout>

and on your activity XML, you can use visibility as

<include
     layout="@layout/include_body"
     android:visibility="@{results.size()>0 ? View.VISIBLE : View.GONE, default=gone}"
     tools:visibility="visible" />

I've bumped into the same error. Databinding was working with every view element except the included layouts.

There's no need to have a workaround for this, what I did is I've surrounded the included layout's root with <layout> tag and put a collapsed <data/> tag in there too - initialised the included layout for databinding.

Voila! It worked.

This is the direct approach, without having to pass the variable inside the included layout

<androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical">

    <include
        layout="@layout/layout_errors"
        android:visibility="@{isVisible ? 0:1 }"
       />

</androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout>

The above code was all I needed

The interesting thing is if I remove the above ternary operator and simplify it like this,

<include
    layout="@layout/layout_errors"
    android:visibility="@{isVisible}"
   />

with addition of an BindingAdapter class with following method,

@BindingAdapter("android:visibility")
    public static void setVisibility(View view, boolean isVisible) {
        view.setVisibility(isVisible ? View.VISIBLE : View.GONE);
    } 

Boom! the OP error invades my entire BuildOutput trace, interesting world of Android

Thank to everybody, you help me a lot. Your answers were part of my succes on this trouble.

We wanted to set visibility of an image view, that was also target of some animation. The Motion Scene was taking the management of the visibility. Set the motion property app:visibilityMode to "ignore" solve everything.

<MotionScene xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">

<ConstraintSet android:id="@+id/expanded">
<!-- ... -->
    <Constraint
        android:id="@+id/myImageViewId"
        app:visibilityMode="ignore"/>
</ConstraintSet>
<!-- ... -->
</MotionScene>

You can find the included layout by its id and hide it using the visibility attribute.

For example in Kotlin,

binding.root.findViewById<CardView>(R.id.layout_inclulded).visibility = View.GONE

where,

root is the default attribute for the root element in the parent layout.

CardView is the root element of the included layout in my case.

R.id.layout_inclulded is the id of the included layout in the parent layout.