How to show one layout on top of the other programmatically in my case?

Question

My main layout main.xml simply contains two LinearLayouts:

• The 1st LinearLayout hosts a VideoView and a Button

Answer 1

The answer, given by Alexandru is working quite nice. As he said, it is important that this "accessor"-view is added as the last element. Here is some code which did the trick for me:

        ...

        ...

            </LinearLayout>

        </LinearLayout>

    </FrameLayout>

</LinearLayout>

<!-- place a FrameLayout (match_parent) as the last child -->
<FrameLayout
    android:id="@+id/icon_frame_container"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent">
</FrameLayout>

</TabHost>

in Java:

final MaterialDialog materialDialog = (MaterialDialog) dialogInterface;

FrameLayout frameLayout = (FrameLayout) materialDialog
        .findViewById(R.id.icon_frame_container);

frameLayout.setOnTouchListener(
        new OnSwipeTouchListener(ShowCardActivity.this) {

Answer 2

Use a FrameLayout with two children. The two children will be overlapped. This is recommended in one of the tutorials from Android actually, it's not a hack...

Here is an example where a TextView is displayed on top of an ImageView:

<FrameLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
  android:layout_width="fill_parent"
  android:layout_height="fill_parent">

  <ImageView  
    android:layout_width="fill_parent" 
    android:layout_height="fill_parent" 

    android:scaleType="center"
    android:src="@drawable/golden_gate" />

  <TextView
    android:layout_width="wrap_content" 
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
    android:layout_marginBottom="20dip"
    android:layout_gravity="center_horizontal|bottom"

    android:padding="12dip"

    android:background="#AA000000"
    android:textColor="#ffffffff"

    android:text="Golden Gate" />

</FrameLayout>

Answer 3

FrameLayout is not the better way to do this:

Use RelativeLayout instead. You can position the elements anywhere you like. The element that comes after, has the higher z-index than the previous one (i.e. it comes over the previous one).

Example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    android:layout_width="match_parent" android:layout_height="match_parent">
    <ImageView
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:background="@color/colorPrimary"
        app:srcCompat="@drawable/ic_information"/>

    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="This is a text."
        android:layout_centerHorizontal="true"
        android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
        android:layout_margin="8dp"
        android:padding="5dp"
        android:textAppearance="?android:attr/textAppearanceLarge"
        android:background="#A000"
        android:textColor="@android:color/white"/>
</RelativeLayout>