Shimmer is an Android library that provides an easy way to add a shimmer effect to any view in your Android app. It is useful as an unobtrusive loading indicator that was originally developed for Facebook Home.

Shimmer for Android is implemented as a layout, which means that you can simply nest any view inside a ShimmerFrameLayout tag, and call to start the animation from your code. That's all that is required. The layout will use the values you specify either on the tag (using custom attributes) or programmatically in your code, and generate an animation on the fly. See the API reference for further details.

Here's an example of a composite view, consisting of an image and some text below it, that shows the effect in action:

To include Shimmer in your project, add the following dependency:

// Gradle dependency on Shimmer for Android
dependencies {
  implementation 'com.facebook.shimmer:shimmer:0.5.0'
}
    

  <!-- Maven dependency on Shimmer for Android -->
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.facebook.shimmer</groupId>
  <artifactId>shimmer</artifactId>
  <version>0.5.0</version>
</dependency>
    

Note that you cannot use the custom attributes on the tag if you use the Jar file. You can instead download the AAR file and reference that locally in your project.

You can use the included Gradle wrapper to build the Shimmer library and sample application locally as well. Check out the code at github.com/facebook/shimmer-android.

# Install the latest code to your local repository
./gradlew shimmer:installArchives

# Install the sample app
./gradlew sample:installDebug
    

The following snippet shows how you can use ShimmerFrameLayout

<com.facebook.shimmer.ShimmerFrameLayout
     android:id="@+id/shimmer_view_container"
     android:layout_width="wrap_content"
     android:layout_height="wrap_content"
>
     ...(your complex view here)...
</com.facebook.shimmer.ShimmerFrameLayout>
    

And thats it! If you specify `auto-start` to be false, then you can start the animation in code:

ShimmerFrameLayout container =
  (ShimmerFrameLayout) findViewById(R.id.shimmer_view_container);
container.startShimmer(); // If auto-start is set to false
    

You can control the look and pace of the effect using a number of custom attributes on the ShimmerFrameLayout tag. Alternatively, you can set these values on the layout object itself. For a comprehensive list, check out the API reference

Clip to Children

Whether to clip the shimmering effect to the children, or to opaquely draw the shimmer on top of the children. Use this if your overall layout contains transparency.

Colored

Whether you want the shimmer to affect just the alpha or draw colors on-top of the children.

Base Color

If colored is specified, the base color of the content.

Highlight Color

If colored is specified, the shimmer's highlight color.

Base Alpha

If colored is not specified, the alpha used to render the base view i.e. the unhighlighted view over which the highlight is drawn.

Highlight Alpha

If colored is not specified, the alpha of the shimmer highlight.

Auto Start

Whether to automatically start the animation when the view is shown, or not.

Duration

Time it takes for the highlight to move from one end of the layout to the other.

Repeat Count

Number of times of the current animation will repeat.

Repeat Delay

Delay after which the current animation will repeat.

Repeat Mode

What the animation should do after reaching the end, either restart from the beginning or reverse back towards it.

Direction

The travel direction of the shimmer highlight: left to right, top to bottom, right to left or bottom to top.

Dropoff

Controls the size of the fading edge of the highlight.

Intensity

Controls the brightness of the highlight at the center

Shape

Shape of the highlight mask, either with a linear or a circular gradient.

Tilt

Angle at which the highlight is tilted, measured in degrees

Fixed Width, Height

Fixed sized highlight mask, if set, overrides the relative size value

Width, Height ratio

Size of the highlight mask, relative to the layout it is applied to.

Join the discussion over at our Facebook Group to report bugs, request features or show off your project.

Open an issue on Github if you are using this component in production and would like to be added to this list.

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