How can I suggest a feature to the Google Android team?

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+3 Q:

How can I suggest a feature to the Google Android team?

I have been looking for a easy way to add borders to custom made Views (Compounds or whatever), and the only answer I found was that there is no built-in support for that. Instead there are suggestions that you should add Views on top/below the View you want borders on and a bunch of others really messy ways to get borders.

Coming from the .NET-environment that is pretty brutal to have to do ugly workaround and "hacks" to get something as simple as borders.

Thus, I want to suggest that feature to the Android team. Im not sure how they can have missed it, but it is surely missed =)

So, is there any official way to suggest a feature in the SDK/framework? I have looked around a bit, but cant comment on their blogs, no e-mail addresses as far as I can see...

Regards

+2 A:

Put your suggestion at google code.

Ngu Soon Hui 2009-12-25 14:55:29

I have done this and they really do pay attention and do stuff with comments and suggestions.

Philip Schlump 2009-12-25 15:25:07

+1 A:

You can easily create a Drawable subclass that draws whatever border you want and reports the padding for that border, and sets it as the background of the view you want to have drawn with a border. Or set it on a FrameLayout to have the border placed around the other views inside of the frame.

hackbod 2009-12-25 22:43:57

Btw the platform almost always defines borders as 9-patch drawables.

hackbod 2009-12-25 22:44:27

Hey, thx for the answer. I know about the Drawable approach. I find that very messy to. Why not just include a border property as usual? I think it is just weird they didnt include that support by default. I tried the Drawable approach, didnt get it to work nicely which sort of proves my point: it's messy =(.

Ted 2009-12-26 00:11:57

hackbod: yes, I know about that too. Thats, as I see it, one of those "bunch of messy stuff" to do it. To create a 9-patch image for just getting a border? Horrible approach Id say =( Thx for the answer though =)

Ted 2009-12-26 00:13:28

What kind of border are you looking for? If you just want a blah rectangular border, no, there isn't a super-easy way to do that because... honestly, no real application that looks decent is going to want to do that. But for actual design borders, it is very easy -- define it as a drawable, either as a 9-patch or a shape. I'm sorry you had trouble making a 9-patch drawable, but once you understand it, it is really not that hard. There are a zillion examples of them in the Android resources because pretty much all of the frames and borders and such in the standard UI are built that way.

hackbod 2009-12-26 18:45:25

Hello =) Why wouldnt that look "decent"? Im guessing it would look like a line around the View, just as one would expect from a border? =)

Ted 2009-12-26 20:58:01

ansaurus

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How can I suggest a feature to the Google Android team?

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