Android - shadow on text?

You can do both in code and XML. Only 4 basic things to be set.

1. shadow color
2. Shadow Dx - it specifies the X-axis offset of shadow. You can give -/+ values, where -Dx draws a shadow on the left of text and +Dx on the right
3. shadow Dy - it specifies the Y-axis offset of shadow. -Dy specifies a shadow above the text and +Dy specifies below the text.
4. shadow radius - specifies how much the shadow should be blurred at the edges. Provide a small value if shadow needs to be prominent. Else otherwise.

e.g.

    android:shadowColor="@color/text_shadow_color"
    android:shadowDx="-2"
    android:shadowDy="2"
    android:shadowRadius="0.01"

This draws a prominent shadow on left-lower side of text. In code, you can add something like this;

    TextView item = new TextView(getApplicationContext());
    item.setText(R.string.text);
    item.setTextColor(getResources().getColor(R.color.general_text_color));
    item.setShadowLayer(0.01f, -2, 2,   getResources().getColor(R.color.text_shadow_color));

You should be able to add the style, like this (taken from source code for Ringdroid):

  <style name="AudioFileInfoOverlayText">
    <item name="android:paddingLeft">4px</item>
    <item name="android:paddingBottom">4px</item>
    <item name="android:textColor">#ffffffff</item>
    <item name="android:textSize">12sp</item>
    <item name="android:shadowColor">#000000</item>
    <item name="android:shadowDx">1</item>
    <item name="android:shadowDy">1</item>
    <item name="android:shadowRadius">1</item>
  </style>

And in your layout, use the style like this:

 <TextView android:id="@+id/info"
       android:layout_width="fill_parent"
       android:layout_height="wrap_content"
       style="@style/AudioFileInfoOverlayText"
       android:gravity="center" />

Edit: the source code can be viewed here: https://github.com/google/ringdroid

Edit2: To set this style programmatically, you'd do something like this (modified from this example to match ringdroid's resources from above)

TextView infoTextView = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.info);
infoTextView.setTextAppearance(getApplicationContext(),  
       R.style.AudioFileInfoOverlayText);

The signature for setTextAppearance is

public void setTextAppearance (Context context, int resid)

Since: API Level 1
Sets the text color, size, style, hint color, and highlight color from the specified TextAppearance resource.

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:padding="20dp" >

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/textview"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
        android:shadowColor="#000"
        android:shadowDx="0"
        android:shadowDy="0"
        android:shadowRadius="50"
        android:text="Text Shadow Example1"
        android:textColor="#FBFBFB"
        android:textSize="28dp"
        android:textStyle="bold" />

    <TextView
        android:id="@+id/textview2"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal"
        android:text="Text Shadow Example2"
        android:textColor="#FBFBFB"
        android:textSize="28dp"
        android:textStyle="bold" />

</LinearLayout>

In the above XML layout code, the textview1 is given with Shadow effect in the layout. below are the configuration items are

android:shadowDx – specifies the X-axis offset of shadow. You can give -/+ values, where -Dx draws a shadow on the left of text and +Dx on the right

android:shadowDy – it specifies the Y-axis offset of shadow. -Dy specifies a shadow above the text and +Dy specifies below the text.

android:shadowRadius – specifies how much the shadow should be blurred at the edges. Provide a small value if shadow needs to be prominent. android:shadowColor – specifies the shadow color

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Shadow Effect on Android TextView pragmatically

Use below code snippet to get the shadow effect on the second TextView pragmatically.

TextView textv = (TextView) findViewById(R.id.textview2);
textv.setShadowLayer(30, 0, 0, Color.RED);        

Output :

If you want to achieve a shadow like the one that Android does in the Launcher, we're managing these values. They're useful if you want to create TextViews that will appear as a Widget, without a background.

android:shadowColor="#94000000"
android:shadowDy="2"
android:shadowRadius="4"