Question: Is it possible to create an Android shape object with stroke on only certain sides?

Eg I have:

```
<stroke 
 android:width="3dip" 
 android:color="#000000"
    android:dashWidth="10dip" 
    android:dashGap="6dip" />

```

Which is similar to this CSS:

```
border: 3px dashed black;

```

How can I set the stroke on just one side? This is how I would do it in CSS:

```
border-left: 3px dashed black;

```

How do you do this in Android XML?

Answer: 
I achieved a good solution with this one:

```
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
<!-- This is the line -->
    <item android:top="-1dp" android:right="-1dp" android:left="-1dp">
      <shape>
            <solid android:color="@android:color/transparent" />
            <stroke android:width="1dp" android:color="#ffffff" />
      </shape>
    </item>

</layer-list>

```

This works well in case you need a **transparent background** but still an open stroke color (In my case I only needed a bottom line). If you need a background color you can add a solid shape color as in Maragues answer.

**EDIT 1**

Sometimes, for High Density devices, **using low dip values may end in very thin or invisible strokes or distances**. This may happen to you also when setting ListView dividers.

The simplest workaround is to use a distance of 1px instead of 1dp. This will make the line always visible at all densities. **The best solution would be to create dimension resources for each density, to get the best size for each device.**

**Edit 2**

Fun, but I tried to use this 6 years later and I can't get a good result on Lollipop devices.

Probably the current solution is to use 9-patch. Android should have made an easy solution for this problem after all this time.
Simple and efficient
--------------------

To have a transparent view and everything that is outside has an overlay of some color, what you can do is **build the views that encapsulate the center view without the outside views stepping on the center view**.

This way you avoid having a drawable external to the layout and you have more control over the distances of the views without having to perform calculations at runtime.

```
<androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout .. >

    <View
        android:id="@+id/center"
        android:layout_width="100dp"
        android:layout_height="100dp"
        app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintEnd_toEndOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintStart_toStartOf="parent"
        android:background="@color/transparent"/>

   <View
        android:id="@+id/left_overlay"
        android:layout_width="0dp"
        android:layout_height="0dp"
        app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintRight_toLeftOf="@id/center"
        app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="@id/top_overlay"
        app:layout_constraintBottom_toTopOf="@id/bottom_overlay"
        android:background="@color/black"
        android:alpha="0.5"
        />

    <View
        android:id="@+id/right_overlay"
        android:layout_width="0dp"
        android:layout_height="0dp"
        app:layout_constraintLeft_toRightOf="@id/center"
        app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="@id/top_overlay"
        app:layout_constraintBottom_toTopOf="@id/bottom_overlay"
        android:background="@color/black"
        android:alpha="0.5"
        />

    <View
        android:id="@+id/top_overlay"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="0dp"
        app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintBottom_toTopOf="@id/center"
        android:background="@color/black"
        android:alpha="0.5"
        />

    <View
        android:id="@+id/bottom_overlay"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="0dp"
        app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
        app:layout_constraintTop_toBottomOf="@id/center"
        android:background="@color/black"
        android:alpha="0.5"
        />

</androidx.constraintlayout.widget.ConstraintLayout>

```

GL