FirebaseUI for Android

FirebaseUI for Realtime Database provides two types of adapters for RecyclerView depending on your data needs:

• FirebaseRecyclerAdapter: Binds a Query to a RecyclerView and responds to all real-time events (additions, removals, moves, or changes). Use this for small result sets where real-time updates are required.
• FirebaseRecyclerPagingAdapter: Binds a Query to a RecyclerView by loading data in pages. Use this for large, static data sets to improve memory efficiency. Note: This adapter does not respect real-time events; it will not detect new, removed, or changed items once loaded.

FirebaseUI provides two types of adapters for binding Cloud Firestore queries to a RecyclerView:

• FirestoreRecyclerAdapter: Binds a Query and responds to all real-time events (additions, removals, moves, or changes). Best for small result sets where all data should be loaded at once.
• FirestorePagingAdapter: Binds a Query by loading data in pages. Best for large, static data sets. Note that this adapter does not support real-time events; it will not detect new/removed items or changes to items already loaded.

To enable Glide to handle StorageReference objects, you must register the FirebaseImageLoader.Factory within a custom AppGlideModule. This class is processed by the Glide annotation processor at compile time to generate the GlideApp class.

@GlideModule
public class MyAppGlideModule extends AppGlideModule {

    @Override
    public void registerComponents(Context context, Glide glide, Registry registry) {
        // Register FirebaseImageLoader to handle StorageReference
        registry.append(StorageReference.class, InputStream.class,
                new FirebaseImageLoader.Factory());
    }
}

By default, you must manually manage the lifecycle of a FirestoreRecyclerAdapter to start and stop the underlying Firestore snapshot listener:

• Call startListening() in onStart() to begin receiving updates.
• Call stopListening() in onStop() to remove the listener and clear data.

Automatic Lifecycle Management: To avoid manual calls, pass a LifecycleOwner to the FirestoreRecyclerOptions.Builder#setLifecycleOwner(...) method. FirebaseUI will then automatically handle startListening() and stopListening() based on the lifecycle state.

@Override
protected void onStart() {
    super.onStart();
    adapter.startListening();
}

@Override
protected void onStop() {
    super.onStop();
    adapter.stopListening();
}

For simpler list implementations using ListView, use FirebaseListAdapter. This approach is analogous to FirebaseRecyclerAdapter but does not use a ViewHolder. You must implement populateView to bind your data model to the view.

FirebaseListOptions<Chat> options = new FirebaseListOptions.Builder<Chat>()
        .setQuery(query, Chat.class)
        .build();

FirebaseListAdapter<Chat> adapter = new FirebaseListAdapter<Chat>(options) {
    @Override
    protected void populateView(View v, Chat model, int position) {
        // Bind the Chat to the view
        // ...
    }
};

Use AuthUITheme.fromMaterialTheme() to automatically inherit your app's existing Material Design 3 colors, typography, and shapes. You can also pass arguments to fromMaterialTheme() to override specific properties while inheriting the rest.

// Basic inheritance
val configuration = authUIConfiguration {
    providers {
        provider(AuthProvider.Email())
    }
    theme = AuthUITheme.fromMaterialTheme()
}

// Inheritance with overrides
val configuration = authUIConfiguration {
    providers {
        provider(AuthProvider.Google())
        provider(AuthProvider.Facebook())
    }
    theme = AuthUITheme.fromMaterialTheme(
        providerButtonShape = RoundedCornerShape(16.dp)  // Override button shape
    )
}

To release a new version, create a dedicated release branch from the latest development branch.

1. Checkout and pull the latest version-x.y.z-dev branch.
2. Create a new branch named version-x.y.z from the HEAD of the dev branch.
3. Update Config.kt and gradle.properties to remove SNAPSHOT from the version name and set the release version.
4. Update README.md and auth/README.md with the latest version number and transitive dependency descriptions.
5. Commit changes and push the branch to GitHub to create a pull request against master.

$ VERSION=1.2.3
$ git checkout version-$VERSION-dev && git pull origin version-$VERSION-dev
$ git checkout -b version-$VERSION

# After making changes...
$ git commit -am "Version x.y.z"
$ git push -u origin HEAD:version-$VERSION