How do I implement staggered views in reading order?

Here is what I want to implement:

I'm trying to display definitions I'm getting from the web (right now they're coming from dummy data, but that's neither here nor there).

My first thought was to use a horizontal StaggeredGridView. There are two problems with this. The views are not laid out in the correct order and the span count is not set dynamically. Also, I found out that calling setSpanCount() in onLayoutChildren() causes an error at run time.

Of course, I could just have a LinearLayout and forego my attempt to recycle views. That would work in most cases, but if the user did happen upon a length definition, it would be very memory inefficient.

With that in mind, I resolved to subclass StaggeredGridLayoutManager. And this is where I need your help. Here are the resources I found in my own search:

Google's Implementation of a LinearLayoutManager

A Guide Implementing a Custom LayoutManager

Another Guide for Implementing a Custom LayoutManager

An Overview of a Few Principles to Follow when Implementing a Custom LayoutManager

I went through each one of these, but I cannot mentally separate out what parts are there for their specific use-cases and what parts are common to all custom implementations. If someone could be so kind as to point me in the direction of a resource or explain what all the methods I have to call in what order and for what purpose, I would be immensely grateful. Thank you!

Your first screenshot looks like a perfect case for Google's FlexboxLayout library. You can use the FlexboxLayoutManager with RecyclerView to get exactly what you showed.