Android Material Design on KitKat (and lower) devices

Question

I'm going to develop an android application in our school as a project.

I want to use the new Material Design by Google but i know its only available on Android-L Devices. Jack Underwood has recently released the calendar called "Today Calendar", which is in the Material Style and running on Kitkat and lower Devices.

I know that the Actionbar height is a bit bigger than the older one and the navigation drawer toggle has a new style. And so one ...

How do i implement that?

Answer 1

Currently the Android-L contains the Material Theme which works only on Android-L release.

You can build a Material Style without this Theme. For example:

• you can use a custom ActionBar (it is a customView) with a solid color, without shadow and with the navdrawer icon insted of standard icon app.

• You can build a subheader bar with a LinearLayout below the actionBar with the same color.

• You can build a Floating Action Button with a floating circle (and a shadow in png)

• and so on...

We don't know what will be available for older releases. May be something as the new class Toolbar will be available in support library (and it will semplify the actionbar). I suggest you waiting a month.