Create a card-based layout

Apps often need to display data in similarly styled containers, such as containers that hold information about the items in a list. The system provides the CardView API for you to show information in cards that have a consistent look across the platform. For example, cards have a default elevation above their containing view group, so the system draws shadows below them. Cards provide a way to contain a group of views while providing a consistent style for the container.

A image showing a glimpse of an app UI based on cards — **Figure 1.** An app UI based on cards.

Add the dependencies

The CardView widget is part of AndroidX. To use it in your project, add the following dependency to your app module's build.gradle file:

Groovy

dependencies {
    implementation "androidx.cardview:cardview:1.0.0"
}

Kotlin

dependencies {
    implementation("androidx.cardview:cardview:1.0.0")
}

Create cards

To use a CardView, add it to your layout file. Use it as a view group to contain other views. In the following example, the CardView contains an ImageView and a few TextViews to display some information to the user:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout
    xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:padding="16dp"
    android:background="#E0F7FA"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent">

    <androidx.cardview.widget.CardView
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent">

        <androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout
            android:padding="4dp"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="match_parent">

            <ImageView
                android:id="@+id/header_image"
                android:layout_width="match_parent"
                android:layout_height="200dp"
                android:src="@drawable/logo"
                app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf="parent"
                app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="parent"
                app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent" />

            <TextView
                android:id="@+id/title"
                style="@style/TextAppearance.MaterialComponents.Headline3"
                android:layout_width="match_parent"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:layout_marginTop="4dp"
                android:text="I'm a title"
                app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf="parent"
                app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="parent"
                app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="@id/header_image" />

            <TextView
                android:id="@+id/subhead"
                style="@style/TextAppearance.MaterialComponents.Subtitle2"
                android:layout_width="match_parent"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:layout_marginTop="4dp"
                android:text="I'm a subhead"
                app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf="parent"
                app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="parent"
                app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="@id/title" />

            <TextView
                android:id="@+id/body"
                style="@style/TextAppearance.MaterialComponents.Body1"
                android:layout_width="match_parent"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:layout_marginTop="4dp"
                android:text="I'm a supporting text. Very Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."
                app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf="parent"
                app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="parent"
                app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="@id/subhead" />
        </androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout>
    </androidx.cardview.widget.CardView>
</androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout>

The previous code snippet produces something similar to the following, assuming you use the same Android logo image:

An image showing a single card — **Figure 2.** A basic example of CardView-based layout.

The card in this example is drawn to the screen with a default elevation, which causes the system to draw a shadow under it. You can provide a custom elevation for a card with the card_view:cardElevation attribute. A card at a higher elevation has a more pronounced shadow, and a card at a lower elevation has a lighter shadow. CardView uses real elevation and dynamic shadows on Android 5.0 (API level 21) and higher.

Use these properties to customize the appearance of the CardView widget:

To set the corner radius in your layouts, use the card_view:cardCornerRadius attribute.
To set the corner radius in your code, use the CardView.setRadius method.
To set the background color of a card, use the card_view:cardBackgroundColor attribute.