Android dashed line drawable potential ICS bug

Question

The following is a dashed line, defined as a ShapeDrawable in XML:

<shape
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:shape="line">

    <size
        android:height="2dp"
        android:width="700dp" />

    <stroke
        android:width="1dp"
        android:color="@android:color/black"
        android:dashWidth="1dp"
        android:dashGap="2dp" />

</shape>

This will draw a nice dotted line on several Gingerbread phones. On the Galaxy Nexus however, the dashes appear to be ignored and the shape is drawn as a contiguous line. Even more curious, an emulator running ICS will render it correctly with the dashes, it's just the physical device screwing up.

Am I missing something obvious? Or is this really a bug with Android 4.0? The line is used in several places. Here is an example ImageView:

<ImageView
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content"
    android:layout_marginLeft="@dimen/observation_observe_side_margin"
    android:layout_marginRight="@dimen/observation_observe_side_margin"
    android:layout_marginTop="16dp"
    android:contentDescription="@string/dotted_line_description"
    android:src="@drawable/dotted_line" />

I'm noticing the same issue on my app on the Galaxy Nexus. On my other devices 2.x devices it shows up as dotted. — Donn Felker, Jun 08 '12 at 18:13
possible duplicate of [Dotted line is actually not dotted when app is running on real Android device](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18931679/dotted-line-is-actually-not-dotted-when-app-is-running-on-real-android-device) — AZ_, Oct 10 '14 at 09:44

score 51 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 28 '12 at 16:50

51

The issue logged at http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=29944 has a comment of applying the following to your view:

view.setLayerType(View.LAYER_TYPE_SOFTWARE, null)

This worked for me.

answered Nov 28 '12 at 16:50

saulpower

1,258
1
10
13

35

Note that if you don't want to edit the view programmatically you can also add the attribute `android:layerType="software"` to the XML definition. – Arkaaito Jun 13 '13 at 03:16
API 11+ http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/View.html#setLayerType – Dori Aug 20 '13 at 16:33
so in the example in the question. would you set `android:layerType="software"` to the `ImageView` or the `shape`? – Dave Haigh Aug 07 '14 at 10:06
2

I would do it on the ImageView – saulpower Aug 08 '14 at 15:25

score 25 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 11 '12 at 15:27

25

This issue is logged here http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=29944 Turning off hardware acceleration will show the dashed line.

answered Jun 11 '12 at 15:27

HannahMitt

1,010
11
14

2

Unfortunately this worsens my performance by about 500%. Any workarounds to prevent this? – Philipp Jahoda Oct 04 '14 at 08:51
Don't turn off hardware acceleration. `CardView` will lose it's shadow: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43406938/cardview-not-showing-shadow-elevation. – CoolMind Nov 28 '19 at 09:17

Android dashed line drawable potential ICS bug

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