How to add an icon before each item in alert dialog?

Solution 1:

You need custom ListAdapter to add your image. One way is to subclass the ArrayAdapter (used by default by the AlertDialog). Here is an example:

final Item[] items = {
    new Item("Email", android.R.drawable.ic_menu_add),
    new Item("Facebook", android.R.drawable.ic_menu_delete),
    new Item("...", 0),//no icon for this one
};

ListAdapter adapter = new ArrayAdapter<Item>(
    this,
    android.R.layout.select_dialog_item,
    android.R.id.text1,
    items){
        public View getView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent) {
            //Use super class to create the View
            View v = super.getView(position, convertView, parent);
            TextView tv = (TextView)v.findViewById(android.R.id.text1);

            //Put the image on the TextView
            tv.setCompoundDrawablesWithIntrinsicBounds(items[position].icon, 0, 0, 0);

            //Add margin between image and text (support various screen densities)
            int dp5 = (int) (5 * getResources().getDisplayMetrics().density + 0.5f);
            tv.setCompoundDrawablePadding(dp5);

            return v;
        }
    };


new AlertDialog.Builder(this)
    .setTitle("Share Appliction")
    .setAdapter(adapter, new DialogInterface.OnClickListener() {
        public void onClick(DialogInterface dialog, int item) {
            //...
        }
    }).show();

Here is the Item class

public static class Item{
    public final String text;
    public final int icon;
    public Item(String text, Integer icon) {
        this.text = text;
        this.icon = icon;
    }
    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return text;
    }
}

Solution 2:

Do something like this:

ViewGroup layout=new LinearLayout(context);
TextView tv=new TextView(context); //your text
tv.setText("my text"); 
ImageView imageView=new ImageView(context); //your icon
//filling image view with icon bitmap (in this case from resource)
imageView.setImageBitmap(BitmapFactory.decodeStream(context.getResources().openRawResource(resourceId)));
//ensuring that icon size will be more or less like text height
imageView.setAdjustViewBounds(true);
imageView.setMaxHeight((int )(tv.getLineHeight()*1.5));
imageView.setScaleType(ImageView.ScaleType.CENTER_INSIDE);
layout.addView(imageView); //adding icon
tv.setGravity(Gravity.BOTTOM|Gravity.LEFT);
layout.addView(tv); //adding text

Total idea is to create layout/viewgroup and add icon+text+whatever you want into viewgroup