Android elevation not showing a shadow

Question

I have a ListView  and with each list item I want it to show a shadow beneath it  I am using Android Lollipop s new elevation feature to set a Z on the View that I want to cast a shadow  and am already doing this effectively with the ActionBar  technically a Toolbar in Lollipop   I am using Lollipop s elevation  but for some reason it isn t showing a shadow under the list items  Here is how each list item s layout is set up    lt  xml version  1 0  encoding  utf-8   gt   lt RelativeLayout xmlns android  http   schemas android com apk res android      xmlns app  http   schemas android com apk res-auto      android orientation  vertical      style   style block      android gravity  center      android layout gravity  center      android background   color lightgray       gt        lt RelativeLayout         android layout width  300dp          android layout height  300dp          android layout marginLeft  40dp          android layout marginRight  40dp          android layout marginTop  20dp          android layout marginBottom  20dp          android elevation  30dp           gt            lt ImageView             android id    id documentImageView              android layout width  match parent              android layout height  match parent              android scaleType  centerCrop    gt            lt LinearLayout             android orientation  vertical              android layout width  match parent              android layout height  wrap content              android background   color alphared              android layout alignParentBottom  true   gt                lt appuccino simplyscan Extra CustomTextView                 android id    id documentName                  android layout width  match parent                  android layout height  wrap content                  android textColor   color white                  app typeface  light                  android paddingLeft  16dp                  android paddingTop  8dp                  android paddingBottom  4dp                  android singleLine  true                  android text  New Document                  android textSize  27sp   gt                lt appuccino simplyscan Extra CustomTextView                 android id    id documentPageCount                  android layout width  match parent                  android layout height  wrap content                  android textColor   color white                  app typeface  italic                  android paddingLeft  16dp                  android layout marginBottom  16dp                  android text  1 page                  android textSize  20sp   gt            lt  LinearLayout gt        lt  RelativeLayout gt    lt  RelativeLayout gt    However  here is how it shows the list item  without a shadow      I have also tried the following to no avail    Set the elevation to the ImageView and TextViews themselves instead of the parent layout  Applied a background to the ImageView  Used TranslationZ in place of Elevation

User · Answer

set background color to the layout or view

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Setting android clipToPadding  quot false quot  in the top relative layout has solved the problem

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If you are adding elevation to a button element  you need to add the following line   android stateListAnimator   null    See Android 5 0 android elevation Works for View  but not Button

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Also check if You don t change alpha on that view  I am investigating issue when i change alpha on some views  with elevation  They simply loose elevation when alpha is changed and changed back to 1f

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give some background color to layout worked for me like       android background   color catskill white      android layout height   attr actionBarSize      android elevation   dimen dimen 5dp

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If you have a view with no background this line will help you  android outlineProvider  bounds    If you have a view with background this line will help you  android outlineProvider  paddedBounds

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If you want to have transparent background and android outlineProvider  bounds  doesn t work for you  you can create custom ViewOutlineProvider   class TransparentOutlineProvider extends ViewOutlineProvider         Override     public void getOutline View view  Outline outline            ViewOutlineProvider BACKGROUND getOutline view  outline           Drawable background   view getBackground            float outlineAlpha   background    null   0f   background getAlpha   255f          outline setAlpha outlineAlpha             And set this provider to your transparent view   transparentView setOutlineProvider new TransparentOutlineProvider       Sources  https   code google com p android issues detail id 78248 c13   EDIT  Documentation of Drawable getAlpha   says that it is specific to how the Drawable threats the alpha  It is possible that it will always return 255  In this case you can provide the alpha manually   class TransparentOutlineProvider extends ViewOutlineProvider        private float mAlpha       public TransparentOutlineProvider float alpha            mAlpha   alpha              Override     public void getOutline View view  Outline outline            ViewOutlineProvider BACKGROUND getOutline view  outline           outline setAlpha mAlpha             If your view background is a StateListDrawable with default color  DDFF0000 that is with alpha DDx0 FFx0    0 86  transparentView setOutlineProvider new TransparentOutlineProvider 0 86f

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I spent some time working on it and finally realized that when the background is dark  shadow is not visible

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If it still not showing elevation try       android hardwareAccelerated  true     this will definitely help you

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Sometimes like background   color      or background   ff33    not work  I replace background color with drawable  then it works

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Apparently  you cannot just set an elevation on a View and have it appear  You also need to specify a background   The following lines added to my LinearLayout finally showed a shadow   android background   android color white  android elevation  10dp

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I ve been playing around with shadows on Lollipop for a bit and this is what I ve found     It appears that a parent ViewGroup s bounds cutoff the shadow of its children for some reason  and shadows set with android elevation are cutoff by the View s bounds  not the bounds extended through the margin  the right way to get a child view to show shadow is to set padding on the parent and set android clipToPadding  false  on that parent    Here s my suggestion to you based on what I know    Set your top-level RelativeLayout to have padding equal to the margins you ve set on the relative layout that you want to show shadow  set android clipToPadding  false  on the same RelativeLayout  Remove the margin from the RelativeLayout that also has elevation set   EDIT  you may also need to set a non-transparent background color on the child layout that needs elevation    At the end of the day  your top-level relative layout should look like this    lt RelativeLayout xmlns android  http   schemas android com apk res android      xmlns app  http   schemas android com apk res-auto      style   style block      android gravity  center      android layout gravity  center      android background   color lightgray      android paddingLeft  40dp      android paddingRight  40dp      android paddingTop  20dp      android paddingBottom  20dp      android clipToPadding  false       gt    The interior relative layout should look like this    lt RelativeLayout     android layout width  300dp      android layout height  300dp      android background   some non-transparent color       android elevation  30dp       gt

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I had some luck with setting clipChildren  false  on the parent layout

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If you have a view with no background this line will help you  android outlineProvider  bounds    By default shadow is determined by view s background  so if there is no background  there will be no shadow also

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Adding background color helped me      lt CalendarView     android layout width  match parent      android id    id calendarView      android layout alignParentTop  true      android layout alignParentStart  true      android layout height  wrap content      android elevation  5dp       android background   color windowBackground         gt

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Ugh  just spent an hour trying to figure this out  In my case I had a background set  however it was set to a color  This is not enough  you need to have the background of the view set to a drawable    e g   This won t have a shadow     lt LinearLayout     android layout width  match parent      android layout height  165dp      android background   color ight grey      android elevation  20dp      android orientation  vertical        gt    but this will   lt LinearLayout     android layout width  match parent      android layout height  165dp      android background   drawable selector grey      android elevation  20dp      android orientation  vertical        gt    EDIT   Have also discovered that if you use a selector as a background  if you don t have the corner set then the shadow won t show up in the Preview window but it will show up on the device  e g  This doesn t have a shadow in preview    lt selector xmlns android  http   schemas android com apk res android  gt       lt item gt           lt shape android shape  rectangle  gt               lt solid android color   color white    gt               lt stroke                 android width  1dp                  android color   color grey   gt           lt  shape gt       lt  item gt   lt  selector gt    but this does    lt selector xmlns android  http   schemas android com apk res android  gt       lt item gt           lt shape android shape  rectangle  gt               lt solid android color   color white    gt               lt corners android radius  1dp    gt               lt stroke                 android width  1dp                  android color   color grey   gt           lt  shape gt       lt  item gt   lt  selector gt

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In my case fonts were the problem    1  Without fontFamily I needed to set android background to some value    lt TextView     android layout width  match parent      android layout height  44dp      android background   android color white      android elevation  3dp      android gravity  center      android text   string fr etalons your tickets      android textAllCaps  true      android textColor   color blue 4    gt    2  with fontFamily I had to add android outlineProvider  bounds  setting    lt TextView     android fontFamily   font gilroy bold      android layout width  match parent      android layout height  44dp      android background   android color white      android elevation  3dp      android gravity  center      android outlineProvider  bounds      android text   string fr etalons your tickets      android textAllCaps  true      android textColor   color blue 4    gt

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I believe your issue stems from the fact that you have applied the elevation element to a relative layout that fills its parent  Its parent clips all child views within its own drawing canvas  and is the view that handles the child s shadow   You can fix this by applying an elevation property to the topmost RelativeLayout in your view xml  the root tag

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In my case  this was caused by a custom parent component setting the rendering layer type to  Software    setLayerType View LAYER TYPE SOFTWARE  null     Removing this line of did the trick   Or course you need to evaluate why this is there in the first place   In my case it was to support Honeycomb  which is well behind the current minimum SDK for my project

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Adding to the accepted answer  there is one more reason due to which elevation may not work as expected if the Bluelight filter feature on the phone is ON   I was facing this issue when the elevation appeared completely distorted and unbearable in my device  But the elevation was fine in the preview  Turning off the Bluelight filter on phone resolved the issue   So even after setting  android outlineProvider  bounds    The elevation is not working properly  then you can try to tinker with phone s color settings

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one other thing that you should be aware of  shadows will not show if you have this line in the manifest   android hardwareAccelerated  false   I tried all of the suggested stuff but it only worked for me when i removed the line  the reason i had the line was because my app works with a number of bitmap images and they were causing the app to crash

[android] Android "elevation" not showing a shadow

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