So I'm designing an app that uses google aps api, and I want the map to look better by rounding the corners. I found a bunch of tutorials already but all of them only work if the activity background is a solid color, for example black.
However, my application has a multi-color background. Is there a way to make those corners rounded, but transparent so that it doesn't block my background?
Well I guess you have stumbled on this question I asked regarding the same topic:
Is there a way to implement rounded corners to a Mapfragment?
But in this case I needed a solid color corners. I don't see an easy way to perform what you
ask for. There is no way to added rounded corners to the map "out of the box" so you will need to cover those corners with some other texture, typically it would be a 9-patch texture, that could stretch accordingly to the screen size.
You can take a look at this blog post on 9-patchs I wrote and maybe try to create a
semi-transparent texture that will fit you needs:
9-Patch guide
I've spent few days trying to figure it out, it also seems like it is not possible to use MapView separately, so this seems to be impossible which really sucks. I've also tried to extend MapView and override onDraw in order to apply it to another class which would extend MapFragment, but it is all seems to be waste of time. Maps layouts really suck in Android...
Related
I'm looking for way how to implement specific shadow (like on picture) in my android app Android, with using xml (I can't use 9 patch for this).
This is white rectangle with the same shadow in all directions.
Any idea?
As far as I know, there's no way to create a shadow efficiently with XML without using 9-patch image. You can try playing with shapes and gradients, but the result won't look good.
I also did some tests by adding several shapes with transparent borders, but again the result is not good.
Can you explain your situation (why can't you use 9-patch, which is well supported by android).
Hello fellow Android designers,
I am struggling right now to create xml tooltip that would look like the one on this picture:
Unfortunately it seems like a hell of a work. Till now I was only able to create a simple rounded rectangle like that:
Is it actually possible to create such a shape I have presented on the first photo using xml styling or should I try to create it programatically (which will probably take huge amount of time and creating border would be really hard)? Or maybe the simplest solution is the best and I should use partially transparent png image with the shape of my choosing?
Any advice would be much appreciated.
You can draw it using stretchable 9-patch drawable.
You can specify there which parts are fixed (the little knob on the left and corners) and which are stretchable (all other parts)
I am trying to create a drawable such as this in Android:
I don't think a nine patch will work because there is nowhere that can safety scale vertically. So next I tried a shape drawable but it does not support triangles.
I want to render this image on the fly so there are no artifacts. Also I want to be able to use it in a selector, so I need to be able to represent this image in xml. Maybe I need to extend some class to manually make the shape. If so how do I embed a tag in the xml to tell it where to render? Does anyone know where to start with this or have an example of something similar?
I have read the first 10 pages of hits on stack overflow and google and am not getting anywhere. Thanks very much for any help.
I think a 9-patch would work. For the vertical stretching on the left boundary, fill in the line from top to bottom.
One of the applications in my mobile has this glossy and transparent look(refer the snapshot below), which is quite beautiful. Just want to know how I can achieve this.
I am developing an application for myself and want to implement similar kind of GUI. Although I can create a layout, I am still not good in creating beautiful icons like the one shown above. Any information (or) a link to icon development related tutorials should also be quite helpful. Thanks everyone in advance.
Those are just PNG images with transparency and glossy effect... it almost has nothing to do with programming. Just find a good designer and tell him/her to do a 9patch image like that.
By the way... background buttons, in that case should have the border only. The icon and text can be then added easily.
You have to combine multiple techniques. You can use Button where the background will be defined with a nine-patch image, with rounded corners. Then you can use android:drawableLeft parameter of the Button, to define the icon it will have.
As also Cristian suggests, this is not hard to implement. You need a good designer and get to know the basic techniques like 9patch png images, transparency and basic layout definitions. Good luck
I've created a custom toolbar using a gradient inside a shape. It looks very nice, but since we only have the option for 3 colors (startColor, centerColor, endColor) it looks very round. I would like to do a glass effect, which requires a sharp change in color in the middle. Basically I need 4 colors (startColor, justabovecenterColor, justbelowcenterColor, endColor). Now I could have two shapes sitting on top of each other to get this effect, but I don't want to do this. I'm getting into some tricky UI customization here and that would be very difficult to manage on different sized screens.
Does anyone know how I can create a glass effect?
Have you considered using a NinePatch ? This would be a quick and easy way to make a good looking, scalable set of shapes...