I can think of a number of ways to create a scrolling list - think gmail on your mobile, or a list of menu options that is too long for the screen. You swipe, and it scrolls downwards. I wondered what peoples opinions are?
1. Scrolling
You could either
a. scroll the screen and set the screen offset, or
b. scroll the options up and down
Option a requires that any other code takes account of the screen offset. For example the screen background needs to scroll too.
Option b means that more sprites need to be scrolled each time
I'm erring towards setting the screen offset, and scrolling the background slower, to give a parallax effect.
2. Managing number of options
In the email example, you could have hundreds of options. I am planning on having "one screenfull + 3" option sprites. When the option is offscreen + (0.5 * height), it will be recycled at the bottom of the screen, and the same for downward scrolling.
The sprites will be allocated to visible options and held in the options array. For example, an array of 100 options will have options 10 to 22 with sprites allocated. As you scroll, 11 to 23, 12 to 24, 13 to 25 will be allocated sprites etc.
3. Scrolling motion
The motion tends to be controlled by speed of the swipe. I suppose I should take the distance and timing of a swipe, and translate this to the scrolling speed, which is suppressed over time to slow it down. I could perhaps even implement box 2D and friction to handle this.