Canvas in Jetpack Compose
Hello, fantastic person on the internet! I hope you’re doing well.
We all know that Jetpack Compose is excellent for creating native Android UI, but do you know how we can achieve this using the Canva API?
Canvas API
The Canvas API unveils a new realm of possibilities, allowing us to paint and sculpt the UI with unparalleled precision and artistry.
Screen
We need first to understand how the screen works. Our interface is composed of many pixels, and the more pixels we have, the cleaner the components will be.
To observe that, we can simply zoom in on a component:
Knowing that we can begin drawing using the Canva API.
Implementation
Go to your compose function and invoke the Canvas method.
Now, you have the ability to start drawing. These are some simple functions that can assist you:
- Use
drawRect()to draw a square. - Use
drawCircle()to draw a circle. - Use
drawRoundRect()to draw a square with rounded corners.
Square
- To draw a simple square:
- To draw a square with rounded corners:
Circle
- To draw a simple circle:
- To draw a simple circle with stroke line:
Positions
You can also change the position of the element by a specified number of pixels.
Imagine that I have a square of 100 pixels:
I want to draw a square in the bottom right corner, taking up only half of the layout. We can use topLeft to set the alignment, and I can adjust the offset for both the X and Y axes to 100f:
Your layout is going to look like this:
The power of Canvas
You may be wondering why you need to draw a circle or a square. The answer to that question is that, with simple symbols like that, you can design many other beautiful and unthinkable illustrations.
For example:
Amazing graphics
Logos
Or any shapes
Conclusion
The Canvas API can be extremely useful when you need to create unique illustrations or when you can’t find a high-quality one.
You can combine the Canvas API with Compose animations to create beautiful layouts. Check my article on animation created using Compose for more information on this topic.
All the code and examples it is in this repository.
Happy coding ❤
