Dynamically add layout to another layout

The way Android intends ViewHolders to be used is for views to be created/inflated in onCreateViewHolder() then filled with adapter data in onBindViewHolder(). This is important because onCreateViewHolder() is only called when there is nothing to recycle.

Unlike ListView, RecyclerView is actually recycling ViewHolders rather than Views. So trying to inflate views in onBindViewHolder() is not going to work.

Notice that viewType parameter in onCreateViewHolder()? That's the key.

First you need to override getItemViewType() in your adapter. Let's take a shortcut here; since the view type is an int, let's just use the number of images in the item as the view type:

    @Override
    public int getItemViewType(int position) {
        //  ... return the number of images for data at position
    }

(Normally I would define final ints like VIEW_TYPE_ONE_IMAGE etc. to be returned, which is the proper way to do it.)

How does the adapter use the view types? If your data at position 0 has a view type of 4, then the RecyclerView will only pass a ViewHolder created in onCreateViewHolder() with viewType == 4 to onBindViewHolder() with position == 0.

Now your onCreateViewHolder() might look like this:

    @Override
    public ViewHolder onCreateViewHolder(ViewGroup parent, int viewType) {

        View view = LayoutInflater.from(parent.getContext()).inflate(R.layout.main_layout, parent, false);
        return new ViewHolder(view, viewType);
    }

(FYI: The return type for onCreateViewHolder() should be your ViewHolder type, not RecyclerViews.)

Notice that I added a viewType parameter to your ViewHolder constructor:

    public static class ViewHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder implements View.OnCreateContextMenuListener, View.OnClickListener {
        public TextView title;
        public TextView desc;
        public ImageView img1;
        public ImageView img2;

        public ViewHolder(View view, int viewType) {
            super(view);
            view.setOnCreateContextMenuListener(this);

            title = (TextView) view.findViewById(R.id.title);
            desc = (TextView) view.findViewById(R.id.desc);

            ViewGroup placeholder = (ViewGroup) view.findViewById(R.id.placeholder);

            // here you can use the viewType to help you figure 
            // out which child views you need references for
            switch (viewType) {
            case 1:
                // ...
                break;

            case 2:
                LayoutInflater.from(parent.getContext()).inflate(R.layout.images_two, placeholder);       // this combines inflate() and addView()
                img1 = placeholder.findViewById(R.id.image_one);
                img2 = placeholder.findViewById(R.id.image_two);
                break;

            // ...
            }
        }
    }

You don't necessarily need viewType in the constructor if you are using the same ids in all your different views; you can just check if they're null in onBindViewHolder().

If you have many different view types, one great way to organize the create/bind code is to make your ViewHolder subclass abstract, further subclass it into a different type for each view type, and then return an instance of the appropriate type in onCreateViewHolder(). Declare an abstract method like public void bind(YourItemType item) in your abstract type and implement in your subclasses, then your onBindViewHolder() method is just:

    @Override
    public void onBindViewHolder(ViewHolder holder, int position) {
        holder.bind(data.get(position));  // ... or however you access an item at position
    }

...and creating looks like:

    @Override
    public ViewHolder onCreateViewHolder(ViewGroup parent, int viewType) {

        View view = null;

        switch (viewType) {
        case 1:
            view = LayoutInflater.from(parent.getContext()).inflate(R.layout.images_one, parent, false);
            return new OneImageViewHolder(view);

        case 2:
            view = LayoutInflater.from(parent.getContext()).inflate(R.layout.images_two, parent, false);
            return new TwoImageViewHolder(view);

        // ... etc. etc.
        }
    }

Don't forget, you may be passed a recycled ViewHolder in onBindViewHolder(), so you have to assume all your views are "dirty" and set every single child view to a known state for the data at position.