Android ListView alpha scroller to quickly scroll through a long list

Question

The Contacts app displays a button on the side of the screen that acts like a small finger so you can quickly scroll through the big list. I have a very long list that will be useful for this navigation behavior, but cannot find any documentation on how to enable it.

Is this behavior built into the SDK, or should I write it myself?

Answer 1

Yes, it is included in sdk. See here:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/AbsListView.html#attr_android:fastScrollEnabled

just set this property. If you want to improve it even more, like contacts that show letters for the section you are in, you can use this.

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/SectionIndexer.html