How to draw outside view bounds?

Question

How can I draw (bitmap, line, etc) outside the bounds of a view? From the view's onDraw(), I've read this is not possible as everything drawn will get clipped to the view's bounds.

I did come up with one solution but I'm hoping there's a better one. What does work is to create a transparent view that is at the top of the z order and includes the area I want to draw in (the entire app client area). Then, whenever I want to draw outside some child view, I can simply translate to the coordinates to the transparent view and draw there.

I also read about SurfaceView hoping that would do what I want. But I think it's main purpose is to provide drawing in a separate thread and doesn't solve the problem I'm discussing.

To be clear, it isn't sufficient to simply draw in the parent of the target view because other views in the parent will be higher in the z order and hide the drawing.

Intuition tells me there's a "right way" to do this. Anyone know?

Answer 1

I'm drawing the conclusion that the right way is to do what I proposed - create a transparent view that is at the top of the z-order for the space you need to draw in.

I come to this conclusion after learning how the Navigation Drawer drawing works - exactly in this way. So, if Google uses this technique, I conclude that it's the best way available.