Android – How to make button transparent in the app yet visible

androidbuttontransparency

I want my buttons to be transparent as I have an image on the activity as a background.
If the buttons are not transparent, those buttons are covering the image and image background seems useless.

If I use android:background="@android:color/transparent", it is making my button completely invisible except the text on it. So, I need the button to be transparent provided it should be visible that there is a button. Code snippet would be appreciated.

<Button
android:id="@+id/new_button"
android:layout_width="fill_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background="@android:color/transparent"  //this line makes the button completely invisible.
android:text="@string/label" />

Best Answer

If you just want white borders, and the text/icons in the button, but the button background transparent create the following drawable (I named it button_border.xml):

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

<selector xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item>
        <shape>
            <stroke
                android:color="@android:color/white"
                android:width="1dp" />
            <solid android:color="@android:color/transparent" />
        </shape>
    </item>
</selector>

And use it as a background for the button:

<Button
    .
    .
    .
    android:background="@drawable/button_border"
    />

I'd guess there is a more elegant way to do it with themes, but I'm not that far yet. In the button_border drawable you can add rounded corners and whatnot...

Related Solutions

Android – How to create a transparent Activity on Android

Add the following style in your res/values/styles.xml file (if you don’t have one, create it.) Here’s a complete file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<resources>
  <style name="Theme.Transparent" parent="android:Theme">
    <item name="android:windowIsTranslucent">true</item>
    <item name="android:windowBackground">@android:color/transparent</item>
    <item name="android:windowContentOverlay">@null</item>
    <item name="android:windowNoTitle">true</item>
    <item name="android:windowIsFloating">true</item>
    <item name="android:backgroundDimEnabled">false</item>
  </style>
</resources>

(The value @color/transparent is the color value #00000000 which I put in the res/values/color.xml file. You can also use @android:color/transparent in later Android versions.)

Then apply the style to your activity, for example:

<activity android:name=".SampleActivity" android:theme="@style/Theme.Transparent">
...
</activity>

Android – How to make links in a TextView clickable

Buried in the API demos, I found the solution to my problem:

File Link.java:

    // text2 has links specified by putting <a> tags in the string
    // resource.  By default these links will appear but not
    // respond to user input.  To make them active, you need to
    // call setMovementMethod() on the TextView object.

    TextView t2 = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.text2);
    t2.setMovementMethod(LinkMovementMethod.getInstance());

I removed most of the attributes on my TextView to match what was in the demo.

<TextView
    android:id="@+id/text2"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:text="@string/txtCredits"/>

That solved it. It is pretty difficult to uncover and fix.

Important: Don't forget to remove autoLink="web" if you are calling setMovementMethod().

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Android – How to create a transparent Activity on Android

Android – How to make links in a TextView clickable

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