Create a Horizontal dotted line in android layout

Question

in my layout I am trying to draw a DOTTED LINE.for drawing a horizontal line i am defining a view in my layout file.

     <View
        android:layout_width="fill_parent"
        android:layout_height="1dip"
        android:background="@drawable/customdots" />

and customdots.xml

 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
 <layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" >
  <item
    android:left="10dp"
    android:right="10dp"
    android:width="4dp"
    android:drawable="@drawable/dotted" />

 </layer-list>

dotted.xml

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:shape="line" >

  <size
    android:height="4dp"
    android:width="1024dp"/>
  <stroke
   android:width="4dp" 
   android:dashWidth="4dp"
   android:color="@android:color/black"
   android:dashGap="5dp"/>

</shape>

But i don't get any line using this code. please help me out.

When i use customdots.xml in the listView Divider as

 android:divider="@drawable/customdots"

it shows a good dotted line

Answer 1

I was pulling my hair on this issue too until I figured out there is a bug in the latest versions of Android when rendering lines like this.

This bug can be circumvented by adding android:layerType="software" to the view which is using the dotted line as a background.

Example:

dotted.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:shape="line">

<stroke
    android:dashGap="3dp"
    android:dashWidth="8dp"
    android:height="2px"
    android:color="#FFFFFF" />

</shape>

layout.xml:

    <View
        android:id="@+id/vDottedLine"
        android:background="@drawable/dotted"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="2px"
        android:layerType="software" />