CardView not showing Shadow in Android L

After going through the docs again, I finally found the solution.

Just add card_view:cardUseCompatPadding="true" to your CardView and shadows will appear on Lollipop devices.

What happens is, the content area in a CardView take different sizes on pre-lollipop and lollipop devices. So in lollipop devices the shadow is actually covered by the card so its not visible. By adding this attribute the content area remains the same across all devices and the shadow becomes visible.

My xml code is like :

<android.support.v7.widget.CardView
    android:id="@+id/media_card_view"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="130dp"
    card_view:cardBackgroundColor="@android:color/white"
    card_view:cardElevation="2dp"
    card_view:cardUseCompatPadding="true"
    >
...
</android.support.v7.widget.CardView>

Do not forget that to draw shadow you must use hardwareAccelerated drawing

hardwareAccelerated = true

hardwareAccelerated = false

See Android Hardware Acceleration for details

use app:cardUseCompatPadding="true" inside your cardview. For Example

<android.support.v7.widget.CardView
        android:id="@+id/card_view"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:layout_marginRight="@dimen/cardviewMarginRight"
        app:cardBackgroundColor="@color/menudetailsbgcolor"
        app:cardCornerRadius="@dimen/cardCornerRadius"
        app:cardUseCompatPadding="true"
        app:elevation="0dp">
    </android.support.v7.widget.CardView>

check hardwareAccelerated in manifest make it true , making it false removes shadows , when false shadow appears in xml preview but not in phone .

Add this line to CardView....

card_view:cardUseCompatPadding="true" //for enable shadow
card_view:cardElevation="9dp" // this for how much shadow you want to show

Tips

You can avoid layout_marginTop and layout_marginBottom as shadow itself takes some space to the up and down of it.The amount space defined by how much you will use in card_view:cardElevation="ndp" .

Happy Coding (: