Everything You Need To Know About Material Design For Android
Material design is basically a guide for visual, interactive, and motion design across different devices and platforms. Now, when it comes to integrating material design into Android apps, there are certain guidelines laid down which are mandatory to follow. The developers can also take the benefit of the new styles and components in the material design support library. Learn about the APIs and patterns of the material design that can be used in an Android app.
- New API for the custom animation and shadows.
- Widgets for complicated views like cards and lists.
- Material design theme for the app for styling all the UI widgets.
The Android developers who have the experience of working on projects must know by now how to use material design in the Android apps. For the newbies, learning these things can be difficult, joining Android classes can be a good option for them. Let’s list down elements of material design to be integrated into the Android apps.
1) Animations
The new animation API will allow the developers to build custom animation for touch feedback in the user interface controls, activity transitions, and changes in the view state. These API would allow you to perform various things like:
- Show and hide views with circle reveal animation.
- Give response to touch events in views along with the touch feedback animations.
- Develop increased natural animations using curved motion.
- Display animations into a state list drawable in the middle of the view state changes.
- Switch between various activities using custom activity transition animation.
- Animate the changes in multiple view properties using view state changes animations.
2) Drawables
The new additions to the drawable will allow the developer to integrate material design into the Android app.
- Vector drawables are easily scalable without compromising on definition are apt for the single color in-app icon.
- Color extraction allows the developer to extract prominent colors automatically from a bitmap image.
- Drawable tinting allows the developer to define bitmaps in the form of an alpha mask and tint them with a new color during the runtime.
3) Cards and Elevation Shadows
Along with the X and Y properties, there is also a Z property in the Android Views. The new property signifies the View elevation which shows:
- Shadow Size: Views with higher Z values provide bigger shadows.
- Drawing Order: Views having higher Z values will get displayed on the top of other views.
The elevation is generally applied when you have a card-based layout which allows the developer to show essential pieces of information in a card that delivers a material look.
4) Material Theme and Widgets
To make the most out of material features like styling as per the standard UI widgets, you can apply a material-based theme to your app. Read the below points to know how exactly you can apply the material theme and widget to your Android app.
- Display the navigation, search, brand, and other actions with the App bar.
- Show and hide the navigation of the app with a Navigation drawer.
- Promote the main action of the app UI with Floating Action Button.
- The developer can make use of one of the many material components for the layout of the app and its navigation. There are tabs, a bottom navigation bar, collapsing toolbars, and many more options to choose from.
Where Can You Learn Material Design For Android App?
Any Android training institute will include material design in its Android course. However, if you are looking for the best Android classes, Developers Academy is the one you should choose. Along with the material design, it also includes guaranteed placement and job opportunities.