View bring to front doesnt work

Question

I want to change z order of some views during animation

On Androids above 4.1.2 it works just fine, and on androids below 4.1.2 the Z order doesnt change, the top view remains on top.

This is what i am trying.

myView.bringToFront();
((View)myView.getParent()).invalidate();

How to make it work on older devices ?

Answer 1

   /**
     * Change the view's z order in the tree, so it's on top of other sibling
     * views. This ordering change may affect layout, if the parent container
     * uses an order-dependent layout scheme (e.g., LinearLayout). Prior
     * to {@link android.os.Build.VERSION_CODES#KITKAT} this
     * method should be followed by calls to {@link #requestLayout()} and
     * {@link View#invalidate()} on the view's parent to force the parent to redraw
     * with the new child ordering.
     *
     * @see ViewGroup#bringChildToFront(View)
     */
    public void bringToFront() {
        if (mParent != null) {
            mParent.bringChildToFront(this);
        }
    }

according to this I was simply missing the line

((View)myView.getParent()).requestLayout();

and it worked!

Answer 2

I tried all that. A RelativeLayout was supposed to be on top of a Button but it just didn't want to obey.

In the end I solved it by adding android:elevation="2dp" to the RelativeLayout.

The elevation value is only used in API level 21 and higher. In my case everything below the API level 21 was fine and everything above wasn't.

Hope this might help someone :)