Synth

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Language
Kotlin
Version
N/A
Created
Jan 12, 2021
Updated
Mar 30, 2021 (Retired)
Owner
CRED (CRED-CLUB)
Contributor
Nikhil Panju (nikhilpanju)
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Synth

Synth is CRED's inbuilt library for using Neumorphic components in your app.

What really is Neumorphism? It's an impressionistic style, playing with light, shadow, and depth to create a digital experience inspired by the physical world. That's the definition anyway. Our recommendation is you try it out to see what you make of it. If you do create something with Synth, let us know. We're excited to see where you take it.

A note for the curious: if you wish to learn more about Synth, we have a post detailing the concept and CRED's philosophy behind it here.

For iOS, checkout Synth-iOS

Install

You can install synth by adding this to your build.gradle file:

dependencies {
  implementation 'club.cred.android:synth:1.0.0'
}

Usage & SDK Limitations

To use synth, the parent layout which contains the synth views must specify:

android:clipChildren="false"

Synth renders neumorphic components only on devices running API 28 (Pie) or later. This is because Synth internally uses BlurMaskFilter to render shadows and highlights which are drawn outside of the view bounds — this allows you to align Synth views with other views easily.

The issue below API 28, is, to make BlurMaskFilter work, we need to use hardware acceleration on the view which causes the shadows and highlights to be clipped. We could solve for this by adding padding to the views (similar to how CardView does it) but chose not to because of alignment issues.

In lieu of this, we decided to introduce "compat" version of all our views which render a simple single colored background on the view on devices below API 28.

Buttons

Soft button

Soft button renders the elevated neumorphic platform on which the text is drawn. this elevated platform can be customized in two ways:

  1. By specifying a color for the platform, synth will attempt to compute the light and dark shadow colors
<club.cred.synth.views.SynthButton
    app:neuButtonType="elevated_soft"
    app:neuPlatformColor="@color/button_platform_color"
    ... />
  1. By specifying a complete appearance for all aspects of the elevated platform
<club.cred.synth.views.SynthButton
    app:neuButtonType="elevated_soft"
    ... />
    
<style name="button_platform_appearance">
    <item name="neuLightShadowColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuDarkShadowColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuFillStartColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuFillEndColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuFillPressedStartColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuFillPressedEndColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuBorderStartColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuBorderEndColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuBorderPressedStartColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuBorderPressedEndColor">...</item>
</style>

Flat button

Flat button renders a flat surface on top of the elevated neumorphic platform. This flat surface can be customized in two ways:

  1. By specifying a color for the surface, synth will attempt to compute the gradients, borders, etc of the surface
<club.cred.synth.views.SynthButton
    app:neuButtonType="elevated_flat"
    app:neuFlatButtonColor="@colo/button_surface_color"
    app:neuPlatformAppearance="@style/button_platform_appearance" 
    ... />
  1. By specifying a complete appearance for all aspects of the flat surface
<club.cred.synth.views.SynthButton
    app:neuButtonType="elevated_flat"
    app:neuFlatButtonAppearance="@style/button_flat_appearance"
    
    app:neuPlatformAppearance="@style/button_platform_appearance" 
    ... />
    
<style name="button_flat_appearance">
    <item name="neuButtonStartColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuButtonEndColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuButtonBorder1StartColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuButtonBorder1EndColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuButtonBorder2StartColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuButtonBorder2EndColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuButtonPressedDarkShadowColor">...</item>
</style>

Image button

Image button is simply an image view with a neumorphic platform

<club.cred.synth.views.SynthImageButton
    app:neuButtonType="elevated_soft"
    app:srcCompat="@drawable/ic_chevron_left"
    ... />

Adding drawable to buttons

You can add a drawable to a button (to the left of the text). Synth will render a neumorphic pit on which the drawable is rendered. This pit can be customized in two ways:

  1. By not specifying anything, synth will take either the neuPlatformColor (if it's a soft button) or neuFlatButtonColor (if it's a flat button) and compute the gradient colors and pressed colors.
<club.cred.synth.views.SynthButton
    app:neuButtonType="elevated_soft"
    app:neuButtonDrawable="@drawable/ic_plus"
    app:neuButtonDrawablePitRadius="20dp"
    
    app:neuPlatformColor="@color/button_platform_color"
    .. or ..
    app:neuFlatButtonColor="@color/button_surface_color"
    ... />
  1. By specifying a complete appearance for all aspects of the icon pit
<club.cred.synth.views.SynthButton
    app:neuButtonType="elevated_flat"
    app:neuButtonDrawable="@drawable/ic_plus"
    app:neuButtonDrawablePitRadius="20dp"
    
    app:neuButtonIconAppearance="@style/button_icon_appearance"
    ... />
    
<style name="button_icon_appearance">
    <item name="neuFillStartColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuFillEndColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuFillPressedStartColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuFillPressedEndColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuButtonCompatColor">...</item>
</style>

All button attributes

Attribute Description Value
app:neuButtonType type of the button elevated_flat or elevated_soft
app:neuButtonRadius corner radius of button dimension
app:neuPlatformColor color of neumorphic platform color
app:neuPlatformAppearance appearance of neumorphic platform style resource
app:neuFlatButtonColor color of flat button surface color
app:neuFlatButtonAppearance appearance of flat button surface style resource
app:neuButtonDrawable drawable resource of left icon drawable resource
app:neuButtonDrawablePitRadius radius of the pit behind the icon dimension
app:neuButtonIconAppearance appearance of the pit behind the icon style resource
app:neuButtonCompatColor color of button on compat devices color

PitView and ElevatedView

  • PitView and ElevatedView are simple Views that can be used to simulate a debossed or embossed neumorphic platform
  • They are not ViewGroups so ideally they can be used in a ConstraintLayout with other Views that are constrained to the PitView or ElevatedView.
  • To use these freely with your views, PitDrawable and ElevatedDrawable can be set as background for your Views programmatically.

PitView

PitView shadows can be specified in two ways:

  1. By specifying a color for the pit, synth will attempt to compute the shadows of the pit
<club.cred.synth.views.PitView
  app:pitColor="@color/pit_color"  
  app:neuCornerRadius="14dp"
  ... />
  1. By specifying a complete appearance for all aspects of the pit
<club.cred.synth.views.PitView
  app:pitViewAppearance="@style/pit_view_appearance"  
  app:neuCornerRadius="14dp"
  ... />
    
<style name="pit_view_appearance">
    <item name="neuLightShadowColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuDarkShadowColor">...</item>
    <item name="softEdgeColor">...</item>
    <item name="neuCompatColor">...</item>
</style>

PitView attributes

attribute description value
app:pitColor color of pit from which shadows colors will be computed color
app:pitViewAppearance appearance of pit style resource
app:neuCornerRadius corner radius of pit dimension
app:pitClipType edge(s) of pit which should be clipped (no shadows or corner arc will be drawn) no_clip, top, bottom, left, right, left_right, top_bottom
app:pitDepth depth of pit dimension

ElevatedView

ElevatedView internally uses the same neumorphic platform that is used to draw the buttons. To specify the appearance and shadows of the ElevatedView, the same attributes of soft button can be used:

  1. By specifying app:neuPlatformColor, synth will compute the shadows and gradients of the view.
  2. By specifying the complete appearance using app:neuPlatformAppearance (same as soft button).

ElevatedView attributes

attribute description value
app:neuPlatformColor color of elevated view color
app:neuPlatformAppearance appearance of the elevated view (same as soft button) style resource
app:neuCornerRadius corner radius of the elevated view dimension
app:neuShadowOffset shadow offset dimension

Min SDK

We support a minimum SDK of 21. But the neumorphic components will be rendered appropriately only on devices running SDK version 28 or above.

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome! We'd love help improving this library. Feel free to browse through open issues to look for things that need work. If you have a feature request or bug, please open a new issue so we can track it.

Contributors

Synth would not have been possible if not for the contributions made by CRED's design and frontend teams. Specifically:

License

Copyright 2020 Dreamplug Technologies Private Limited.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.