Efficiently update RecyclerView Grid or otherwise Display Complex Grid

Question

I have a grid of pixels being displayed using a RecyclerView (as shown in image). When the button is pushed, most of the pixels will be changing colors. I want this update to process each pixels color change more uniformly, even if it takes a very long time to complete (there may be hundreds of thousands of pixels) without blocking the main thread. How is this possible?

If possible I'd like a smooth flow as individual pixels change. The most important thing here is not completing the action quickly but smoothly. I'm not attached to RecyclerView if this isn't the best choice - I was just lead to believe it would be better for performance. I don't need listeners of any kind for the cells. Eventually the cells will become more complex, each housing other cells (Layered Views with background colors). I will be using an SQL database and the Room library for data storage and edit.

The process should be happening over a background thread so as not to halt the UI. Currently I am updating my RecyclerView via myRecyclerAdapter.notifyItemChanged(i); on the onClickListener of the button and my UI will halt while it completes.

Answer 1

Try the CustomView,there are very good reasons to use CustomView for creating views that are not provided by the standard widgets. You shoud be able to use a background thread to implement the time sync or delay between each transition,to make it smooth.And use runOnUiThread() method to change the ui i.e pixel colors in your case. for example- you can try stuff like this-

 Runnable onAnimationStarted=new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
            //change ui
            }
        };
Runnable onAnimationStopped=new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
            //change ui
            }
        };
       Thread thread = new Thread(){
                @Override
                public void run() {
    runOnUiThread(onAnimationStarted);
              long start= System.currentTimeMillis();;
              while(System.currentTimeMillis()-start<1000) //waits one second
            {

            };
    runOnUiThread(onAnimationStopped);                 
        }

        };
            thread.start();