Swap buttons in layout

Question

Say I have 4 buttons. I want to have button 2 always swap out with another button, randomly. So, when the user taps button 2, it should swap with another button (randomly).

Now, button 2 is at the bottom right corner. So if the user taps button 2 again, it has the option to swap with the other three buttons. How can I achieve this?

I have already tried to make an array of the four values:

top_right, top_left, bottom_right, bottom_left

And have successfully had them swap, but it was very memory inefficient, and took a while.

Answer 1

I created a working demo using android's built-in buttons.

This is the main Activity class. Each button have the same onClick method buttonClicked().

List<View> buttons = new ArrayList<View>();

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);

    // Store the button to the buttons array for later.
    buttons.add(findViewById(R.id.button));
    buttons.add(findViewById(R.id.button2));
    buttons.add(findViewById(R.id.button3));
    buttons.add(findViewById(R.id.button4));
}


public void buttonClicked(View v) {
    // Remove the clicked button from it's frame layout parent.
    ViewManager p = (ViewManager) v.getParent();
    p.removeView(v);

    // Find another button randomly.
    Random rng = new Random();
    View v2;
    do {
        int i = rng.nextInt(4);
        v2 = buttons.get(i);
    } while (v2 == v); // Loop until you get a different button to swap with.

    // Remove the other button from it's frame layout parent.
    ViewManager p2 = (ViewManager) v2.getParent();
    p2.removeView(v2);

    // Now simply insert each button into the other buttons frame layout.
    p.addView(v2, v2.getLayoutParams());
    p2.addView(v, v.getLayoutParams());
}

This is how the layout looks like. I have each button in a separate frame layout which stay where they are with the buttons inside swapping which frame container they are inside.

If anything is unclear just ask.

Answer 2

If you want to use the solution you describe in your question, you can achieve it pretty easily with an ArrayList. This is assuming you have some sort of class for your buttons. If not, it might be a bit more cumbersome. The logic's the same though.

Create the initial list at the start of your class with the buttons:

ArrayList<Button> buttons = new ArrayList<Button>();
buttons.add(new Button("button1", xPos, yPos));
buttons.add(new Button("button2", xPos, yPos));
buttons.add(new Button("button3", xPos, yPos));
buttons.add(new Button("button4", xPos, yPos));

Then whenever the user clicks on one of them, run this:

// Make this equal the button the user clicks!
Button userSelection = GetClickedButton();

// Remove that button from the array.
buttons.remove(userSelection);

// Select a random button from the remaining ones.
Button toSwap = buttons.get(new Random().nextInt(buttons.size())));                     

// Now swap. Just swap the positions of the chosen buttons.
SwapButtonPositions(userSelection, toSwap);

// Add the removed button back to the list. 
buttons.add(userSelection); 

EDIT: I misread your question. I thought you wanted any button to be swappable, not just one of them. The logic for doing that is the same as above. Just have some way to tag the swappable button (like giving it a name) and run the code whenever it's clicked, rather than when any button's clicked.