[android] CardView not showing Shadow in Android L

My Cardview inside Listview is not showing shadow in Android L(Nexus 5). Also the round edges are not properly shown. Here is the code for Listview's Adapter View :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
xmlns:card_view="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/com.example.myapp"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:orientation="vertical" >

<android.support.v7.widget.CardView
    xmlns:card_view="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:id="@+id/card_view"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    app:cardBackgroundColor="@android:color/white"
    android:foreground="?android:attr/selectableItemBackground"
    app:cardCornerRadius="4dp"
    app:cardElevation="4dp" >

    <RelativeLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
        android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin" >

        <TextView
            android:id="@+id/tvName"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
            android:layout_marginTop="@dimen/padding_small"
            android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
            android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
            android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge" />

        <ImageView
            android:id="@+id/ivPicture"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_below="@+id/tvName"
            android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
            android:scaleType="fitCenter" />

        <TextView
            android:id="@+id/tvDetail"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_below="@+id/ivPicture"
            android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
            android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
            android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin" />
    </RelativeLayout>
</android.support.v7.widget.CardView>

And the ListView xml :

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:card_view="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/com.example.myapp"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="fill_parent"
android:background="@drawable/app_bg" >

<ListView
    android:id="@android:id/list"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
    android:cacheColorHint="#00000000"
    android:divider="@android:color/transparent"
    android:drawSelectorOnTop="true"
    android:smoothScrollbar="true" />

<ProgressBar
    android:id="@+id/progressBarMain"
    style="?android:attr/progressBarStyleLarge"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_centerInParent="true"
    android:visibility="gone" /></RelativeLayout>

It works fine on pre-L devices with proper shadow and rounded corners. But not working aon Android L device. Can you tell what i am missing here?

Add this line to CardView....

card_view:cardUseCompatPadding="true" //for enable shadow
card_view:cardElevation="9dp" // this for how much shadow you want to show

Tips

You can avoid layout_marginTop and layout_marginBottom as shadow itself takes some space to the up and down of it.The amount space defined by how much you will use in card_view:cardElevation="ndp" .

Happy Coding (:

Card view can't show shadow because of your RelativeLayout is on the card view's shadow. To show the shadow add margins on your Card view. For example:

<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content">

<android.support.v7.widget.CardView
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_marginLeft="8dp"
    android:layout_marginRight="8dp"
    android:layout_marginTop="4dp"
    android:layout_marginBottom="8dp">

</android.support.v7.widget.CardView>

</RelativeLayout>

My recyclerview was slow in loading so by reading the stackoverflow.com I changed hardwareAccelerated to "false" then the elevation is not showing in the device. The I changed back to true. It works for me.

Do not forget that to draw shadow you must use hardwareAccelerated drawing

hardwareAccelerated = true

hardwareAccelerated = false

See Android Hardware Acceleration for details

I think if you check your manifest first if you wrote android:hardwareAccelerated="false" you should make it true to having shadow for the card Like this answer here

use app:cardUseCompatPadding="true" inside your cardview. For Example

<android.support.v7.widget.CardView
        android:id="@+id/card_view"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:layout_marginRight="@dimen/cardviewMarginRight"
        app:cardBackgroundColor="@color/menudetailsbgcolor"
        app:cardCornerRadius="@dimen/cardCornerRadius"
        app:cardUseCompatPadding="true"
        app:elevation="0dp">
    </android.support.v7.widget.CardView>

You can try by adding this line

 card_view:cardUseCompatPadding="true"

The Whole code will seems like this

  <android.support.v7.widget.CardView 
        xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
        xmlns:card_view="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="200dp"
        android:layout_margin="5dp"
        android:orientation="horizontal"
        card_view:cardUseCompatPadding="true"
        card_view:cardCornerRadius="5dp">
 </android.support.v7.widget.CardView

Finally i was able to get shadows on Lollipop device by adding margin to the cardview. Here is the final cardview layout :

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    xmlns:card_view="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/com.example.myapp"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:orientation="vertical" >

<android.support.v7.widget.CardView
    xmlns:card_view="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:id="@+id/card_view"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    app:cardBackgroundColor="@android:color/white"
    android:foreground="?android:attr/selectableItemBackground"
    android:layout_marginLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:layout_marginRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
    android:layout_marginTop="@dimen/padding_small"
    android:layout_marginBottom="@dimen/padding_small"
    app:cardCornerRadius="4dp"
    app:cardElevation="4dp" >

<RelativeLayout
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin"
    android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin" >

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/tvName"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
        android:layout_marginTop="@dimen/padding_small"
        android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
        android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge" />

    <ImageView
        android:id="@+id/ivPicture"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_below="@+id/tvName"
        android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
        android:scaleType="fitCenter" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/tvDetail"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_below="@+id/ivPicture"
        android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
        android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin"
        android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin" />
</RelativeLayout>

You can add this line of code for shadow in card view

card_view:cardElevation="3dp"

Below you have an example

<android.support.v7.widget.CardView
    xmlns:card_view="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:id="@+id/card_view"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    app:cardBackgroundColor="@android:color/white"
    android:foreground="?android:attr/selectableItemBackground"
    card_view:cardElevation="3dp"
    card_view:cardCornerRadius="4dp">

Hope this helps!

Add android:hardwareAccelerated="true" in your manifests file like below it works for me

 <activity
        android:name=".activity.MyCardViewActivity"
        android:hardwareAccelerated="true"></activity>

In my case the shadow was not showing on Android L devices because I did not add a margin. The problem is that the CardView creates this margin automatically on <5 devices so now I do it like this:

CardView card = new CardView(context);
LinearLayout.LayoutParams params = new LinearLayout.LayoutParams(
        LayoutParams.MATCH_PARENT, LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT);
if (Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP == Build.VERSION.SDK_INT) {
    params.setMargins(shadowSize, shadowSize, shadowSize,
            shadowSize);
} else {
    card.setMaxCardElevation(shadowSize);
}
card.setCardElevation(shadowSize);
card.setLayoutParams(params);

First of all make sure that following dependencies are proper added and compiled in build.gradle file

    dependencies {
    ...
    compile 'com.android.support:cardview-v7:21.0.+'

    }

and after this try the following code :

     <android.support.v7.widget.CardView 
            xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
            xmlns:card_view="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="200dp"
            android:layout_margin="5dp"
            android:orientation="horizontal"
            card_view:cardCornerRadius="5dp">
     </android.support.v7.widget.CardView

problem rises in Android L beacuse layout_margin attribute is not added

check hardwareAccelerated in manifest make it true , making it false removes shadows , when false shadow appears in xml preview but not in phone .

move your "uses-sdk" attribute in top of the manifest like the below answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/27658827/1394139

Simply add this tags:

app:cardElevation="2dp"
app:cardUseCompatPadding="true"

So its become:

<android.support.v7.widget.CardView
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    app:cardBackgroundColor="?colorPrimary"
    app:cardCornerRadius="3dp"
    app:cardElevation="2dp"
    app:cardUseCompatPadding="true"
    app:contentPadding="1dp" />

Check you're not using android:layerType="software" in your RecyclerView.

Changing it to android:layerType="hardware" solved the issue for me.