Question

I’ve made a button background from shapes and is looking quite good for my purpose. The only thing needed is to drop a bit of shadow for it.
Here is the code:

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

    <item android:state_pressed="true">
        <shape>
            <solid android:color="#343434" />

            <stroke android:width="1dp" android:color="#171717" />

            <corners android:radius="3dp" />

            <padding android:bottom="10dp" android:left="10dp" android:right="10dp" android:top="10dp" />
        </shape>
    </item>
    <item>
        <shape>
            <gradient android:angle="270" android:endColor="#E2E2E2" android:startColor="#BABABA" />

            <stroke android:width="1dp" android:color="#BABABA" />

            <corners android:radius="4dp" />

            <padding android:bottom="10dp" android:left="10dp" android:right="10dp" android:top="10dp" />
        </shape>
   </item>

</selector>

Here’s what I want to achieve

How do I drop the shadow ? My guess is that I need to make another shape but with black/gray background and set some sort of topa nd left padding of margin to make it look like a shadow. But I don’t know how to do it… and documentation didn’t helped me too much.

Later Edit: I want to add the shadow in xml file and not by code.
Thanks.

Answer 1

If you want to stack more shapes one on top of each other then you could use a layer-list. Bellow is the code for the normal item in your selector(with a strip of gray color):

<item>
    <layer-list>
        <item android:right="5dp" android:top="5dp">
            <shape>
                <corners android:radius="3dp" />
                <solid android:color="#D6D6D6" />
            </shape>
        </item>
        <item android:bottom="2dp" android:left="2dp">
            <shape>
                <gradient android:angle="270" android:endColor="#E2E2E2" android:startColor="#BABABA" />
                <stroke android:width="1dp" android:color="#BABABA" />
                <corners android:radius="4dp" />
                <padding android:bottom="10dp" android:left="10dp" android:right="10dp" android:top="10dp" />
            </shape>
        </item>
    </layer-list>
</item>

The problem is that you’ll not be able to achieve a true shadow look on your Button with this type of drawable. You could use the code from the other answer or a nine patch image that already has shadow on it.