set alpha of only parent

[Jeet Dholakia]

hey guys,

I have a few textviews inside a linear layout, but when i set the alpha property in linear layout, even the child layouts appear half transparent, how can i set the property only for parent but not the child , either by xml or programatically ?

Regards,
Jeet

[Steve Luke]

The TextViews must have transparent backgrounds by default. Set their background to something specific.

[Jeet Dholakia]

I think you interpreted that differently, i mean , my linear layout has an alpha property of 0.5 because its laid on top of an imageview,to render a better ux, but all the textviews inside linearlayout aren't supposed to have alpha, but that's the default android behavior i guess,so any workarounds? Setting alpha value of textview to 1 doesnt seem to work...

[Steve Luke]

Can you provide a sample layout that shows us the problem? That way I can run it and see what exactly you mean.

[Jeet Dholakia]

sure ,

I'll give the the xml of what i mean , i think you'll get my question asap then

<ScrollView android:id="@+id/fontArtCategories" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:layout_above="@+id/colorLayout" android:layout_alignParentLeft="true" android:layout_alignParentTop="true" android:background="#000000" <!--here i set alpha of parent as 0.5 --!> android:alpha="0.5" android:visibility="invisible" > <LinearLayout android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="match_parent" android:orientation="vertical" android:paddingTop="30dp" > <TextView android:id="@+id/food" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:onClick="selectFontArt" android:padding="20dp" android:text="FOOD" android:textColor="#FDFDFD" <!-- and now i set the alpha of 1 in the child, still it inherits the alpha of 0.5 from its parent --!> android:alpha="1" android:textSize="50dp" /> <TextView android:id="@+id/faces" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:onClick="selectFontArt" android:padding="20dp" android:text="FACES" android:alpha="1" android:textColor="#FDFDFD" android:textSize="50dp" /> </LinearLayout> </ScrollView>


all i want is a 0.5 alpha of parent and 1 alpha of child...

[Steve Luke]

First, if you set android:visibility="invisible" then the entire view group will be invisible, nothing to change that. Also, it looks like the android:alpha attribute is designed to set the alpha for a view group and all its children. So you shouldn't be using it. Instead, set the background color with the alpha you want. Example:
<FrameLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools" android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="match_parent" android:paddingLeft="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin" android:paddingRight="@dimen/activity_horizontal_margin" android:paddingTop="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin" android:paddingBottom="@dimen/activity_vertical_margin" android:background="@drawable/ic_launcher" tools:context=".MainActivity"> <ScrollView android:id="@+id/fontArtCategories" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="fill_parent" android:layout_above="@+id/colorLayout" android:layout_alignParentLeft="true" android:layout_alignParentTop="true" android:background="#8555" > <LinearLayout android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="match_parent" android:orientation="vertical" android:paddingTop="30dp" > <TextView android:id="@+id/food" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:padding="20dp" android:layout_margin="10dp" android:text="FOOD" android:textColor="#FDFDFD" android:textSize="50dp" android:layout_gravity="center"/> <TextView android:id="@+id/faces" android:layout_width="wrap_content" android:layout_height="wrap_content" android:padding="20dp" android:layout_margin="10dp" android:text="FACES" android:textColor="#FDFDFD" android:textSize="50dp" android:background="#555"/> </LinearLayout> </ScrollView> </FrameLayout>

This looks like:

Note that the first text box, I did not set any specific background color, so it inherited the one from the scroll pane. But the second one I set a specific color, so it gets its own alpha channel, and is not hidden. Also note that I put an image in the FrameLayout, and set the ScrollView to have a gray background color so that you could see the alpha effect more clearly.

[Jeet Dholakia]

thanks,

this is what i really wanted, especially i'd give a +1 for the wireframe had there been a button for that