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:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<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"
    >

    <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"
        >

        <ImageView
            android:id="@+id/documentImageView"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="match_parent"
            android:scaleType="centerCrop" />

        <LinearLayout
            android:orientation="vertical"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:background="@color/alphared"
            android:layout_alignParentBottom="true" >

            <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"/>

            <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"/>

        </LinearLayout>

    </RelativeLayout>

</RelativeLayout>

However, here is how it shows the list item, without a shadow:

I have also tried the following to no avail:

1. Set the elevation to the ImageView and TextViews themselves instead of the parent layout.
2. Applied a background to the ImageView.
3. Used TranslationZ in place of Elevation.

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

In my case fonts were the problem.

1) Without fontFamily I needed to set android:background to some value.

<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" />

2) with fontFamily I had to add android:outlineProvider="bounds" setting:

<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" />

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

sometimes like background="@color/*" or background="#ff33"not work, I replace background_color with drawable, then it works

Answer 5

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

Answer 6

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"