How to Use Material Design in Android App?

Question

I've gone to the Android Developer documentation to see how I can use material design, here:

https://developer.android.com/training/material/theme.html

and here:

https://developer.android.com/training/material/get-started.html

Essentially, I would like for someone to summarize how to set up/use material design, because I feel like there is a lot of information on the developer docs, and I can't seem to wrap my mind around it. If you'd rather give me a link to a guide created by someone else, that'd be helpful as well.

I'm also using API level 19 (target SDK version 19) and from what I can see, I'll need to use com.android.support:cardview-v7:21.0.+

I'm also using Android Studio, and not eclipse.

EDIT: I would like to be able to use material design for devices that are not running Android 5.0 Lollipop, because according to the Android distribution data, there are less than 0.1% of devices running Lollipop: Android Distribution Data

Answer 1

Install SDK platform of Android 5.0 SDK then update your Support Library and Support Repository to the latest version via the SDK-Manager.

Take a look at this link for creating material app

http://developer.android.com/training/material/index.html

With support libraries, you can provide similar behaviour on older devices like:

• Using the Material Theme
• Subset of UI widgets like
  • EditText
  • Spinner
  • RadioButton

Also take a look at android design support library.

More information :

• https://chris.banes.me/2014/10/17/appcompat-v21/
• http://android-developers.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/appcompat-v21-material-design-for-pre.html
• https://developer.android.com/training/material/compatibility.html

But for using some concepts like FloatingActionButton in your application you can use this library : https://github.com/makovkastar/FloatingActionButton

More libraries available here

https://android-arsenal.com/