We begin implementing the Swipe to Refresh pattern with a brand new Android Studio project and the most recent version of the Android Support Library (your SDK manager should show an Android Support Library version of at least 21.0). All we have to do is set it up! For your reference, the project we’ll build is available for download on GitHub here. Introduced alongside KitKat and enhanced with the Lollipop release of the v4 Android support library, a working implementation of the Swipe to Refresh UI pattern is included, called SwipeRefreshLayout. The Swipe to Refresh pattern is a nice fit for adapter-backed views ( RecyclerView and ListView, for example) that also need to support user-requested refreshes, like a list that displays a Twitter newsfeed that’s updated by a user, on demand.

It’s found its way into many popular Android apps like Facebook, Google Newsstand, Trello, Gmail and many others. In fact, you’ve probably already seen and used it.

One of the great ideas formalized in the new Material Design user interface guidelines is the Swipe to Refresh UI pattern.

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