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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-14T22:57:29+00:00

I’m using the following drawable: <?xml version=1.0 encoding=utf-8?> <shape xmlns:android=http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android android:shape=rectangle > <gradient android:startColor=@color/content_background_gradient_start

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I’m using the following drawable:

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

    <gradient 
        android:startColor="@color/content_background_gradient_start"
        android:endColor="@color/content_background_gradient_end" 
        android:angle="270"
        />

</shape>

The problem is that I get severe banding on hdpi devices (like the Nexus One and Droid) since the gradient goes from the top of the screen to the very bottom.

According to http://idunnolol.com/android/drawables.html#shape_gradient there isn’t a “dither” attribute for a gradient. Is there anything I can do to smooth the gradient?

Note: adding dither=”true” to shape doesn’t seem to work.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I wrote the documentation you referenced. I’ve taken another look at the code and unfortunately there’s no way to enable dithering on a GradientDrawable except by explicitly calling GradientDrawable.setDither() in code.

    (The way the codes looks, technically you could include the Gradient as the only child of a <selector>, and enable dithering on the entire selector; however, it’s definitely a hack.)

    I’m not convinced enabling dithering will actually solve your problem, as dithering (at least as it’s noted in the official Android docs) are for solving banding problems when the device has too small of a color palette. This seems to be a banding problem due to the size of the gradient.

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