Shapes in Android are extremely useful but there are not enough examples.
The values for the shape attribute are: rectangle, oval, line and ring.
Here is a simple (and ugly) example but you can get the point:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:shape="rectangle"> <solid android:color="#ff0000"/> <gradient android:startColor="#ffffff" android:endColor="#000000" android:angle="180" /> <stroke android:width="1dp" android:color="#FF000000" android:dashWidth="1dp" android:dashGap="2dp" /> <!-- or --> <stroke android:width="1dp" android:color="#FF00FF00" /> <padding android:left="7dp" android:top="7dp" android:right="7dp" android:bottom="7dp" /> <corners android:bottomRightRadius="9dip" android:bottomLeftRadius="9dip" android:topLeftRadius="9dip" android:topRightRadius="9dip" /> </shape>
Check the documentation here for more details.