Progress Indicators — Material Components For Android

Velmurugan Murugesan
5 min readSep 10, 2020

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Progress indicators express an unspecified wait time or display the length of a process. Material design provides an implementation of linear and circular progress indicators, compatible back to API 15 .

Progress Indicators is API-compatible with Android’s progressBar class and can therefore be used as a replacement for the progressBar.

Progress Indicators added in material design in 1.3.0. Now its in alpha 02. So you need to include following dependency to work with progress indicator.

implementation 'com.google.android.material:material:1.3.0-alpha02'

Before starting checkout my other post on material design:

Usage of progress indicators

It can be included in XML layouts, or constructed programmatically:

XML

<com.google.android.material.progressindicator.ProgressIndicator
android:id="@+id/progressCircleDeterminate"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_gravity="center"
android:progress="70"
style="@style/Widget.MaterialComponents.ProgressIndicator.Circular.Determinate"/>

Kotlin

//Create the progress indicator
val progressIndicator = ProgressIndicator(
this, null, 0,
R.style.Widget_MaterialComponents_ProgressIndicator_Circular_Determinate)
// add progress indicator into layout
parentLayout.addView(progressIndicator, LinearLayout.LayoutParams(MATCH_PARENT, WRAP_CONTENT))
// set the progress
progressIndicator.progress = 40
// display the progress dialog
progressIndicator.show()

Showing and hiding progress indicators

use show() method to show the indicator.

progress.show()

use hide() method to hide the indicator.

progress.hide()

Animation on progress indicators

GrowMode will have different visual effects to the linear and circular progress indicators.

Types of progress indicators

Material Design offers two visually distinct types of progress indicators:

Linear indicator

Circular indicator

Lets see both progress indicator in detail.

Linear indicator

Linear progress indicators display progress by animating an indicator along the length of a fixed, visible track. The behavior of the indicator is dependent on whether the progress of a process is known.

Types

Linear progress indicators support both determinate and indeterminate operations.

Determinate

Indeterminate

Determinate Linear progress Indicator

operations display the indicator increasing in width from 0 to 100% of the track, in sync with the process’s progress.

The important part is adding style for the progress indicator.

For determinate linear progress we need to add,

style="@style/Widget.MaterialComponents.ProgressIndicator.Linear.Determinate"/>

style to create programatically:

R.style.Widget_MaterialComponents_ProgressIndicator_Linear_Determinate

Also, we need to set the progress attribute based on the process level.

android:progress=”70″ or progressIndicator.progress = 70.

Adding Determinate Linear progress Indicator using XML,

<com.google.android.material.progressindicator.ProgressIndicator
android:id="@+id/progressLinearDeterminate"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_gravity="center"
android:progress="70"
style="@style/Widget.MaterialComponents.ProgressIndicator.Linear.Determinate"/>

Programatically using kotlin,

val progressIndicator = ProgressIndicator(
this, null, 0,
R.style.Widget_MaterialComponents_ProgressIndicator_Linear_Determinate)
// add progress indicator into layout
parentLayout.addView(progressIndicator, LinearLayout.LayoutParams(MATCH_PARENT, WRAP_CONTENT))
// set the progress
progressIndicator.progress = 70
// display the progress dialog
progressIndicator.show()

Indeterminate Linear progress Indicator

Indeterminate progress indicators move along a fixed track, growing and shrinking in size.

Adding style for the progress indicator.

For indeterminate linear progress we need to add,

style="@style/Widget.MaterialComponents.ProgressIndicator.Linear.Indeterminate"/>

style to create programatically:

R.style.Widget_MaterialComponents_ProgressIndicator_Linear_Indeterminate

Adding Indeterminate Linear progress Indicator using XML,

<com.google.android.material.progressindicator.ProgressIndicator
android:id="@+id/progressCircleDeterminate"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_gravity="center"
android:progress="70"
style="@style/Widget.MaterialComponents.ProgressIndicator.Linear.Indeterminate"/>

Programatically using kotlin,

val progressIndicator = ProgressIndicator(
this, null, 0,
R.style.Widget_MaterialComponents_ProgressIndicator_Linear_Indeterminate)
// add progress indicator into layout
parentLayout.addView(progressIndicator, LinearLayout.LayoutParams(MATCH_PARENT, WRAP_CONTENT))
// set the progress
progressIndicator.progress = 70
// display the progress dialog
progressIndicator.show()

Circular indicator

Circular progress indicators display progress by animating an indicator along an invisible circular track in a clockwise direction. They can be applied directly to a surface, such as a button or card.

Types

Circle progress indicators support both determinate and indeterminate operations.

Determinate

Indeterminate

Determinate Circle progress Indicator

operations display the indicator increasing in width from 0 to 100% of the circle.

The important part is adding style for the progress indicator.

For determinate circle progress we need to add,

style="@style/Widget.MaterialComponents.ProgressIndicator.Circle.Determinate"/>

style to create programatically:

R.style.Widget_MaterialComponents_ProgressIndicator_Circle_Determinate

Also, we need to set the progress attribute based on the process level.

android:progress=”70″ or progressIndicator.progress = 70.

Adding Determinate circle progress Indicator using XML,

<com.google.android.material.progressindicator.ProgressIndicator
android:id="@+id/progressCircleDeterminate"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_gravity="center"
android:progress="70"
style="@style/Widget.MaterialComponents.ProgressIndicator.Circle.Determinate"/>

Programatically using kotlin,

val progressIndicator = ProgressIndicator(
this, null, 0,
R.style.Widget_MaterialComponents_ProgressIndicator_Circle_Determinate)
// add progress indicator into layout
parentLayout.addView(progressIndicator, LinearLayout.LayoutParams(MATCH_PARENT, WRAP_CONTENT))
// set the progress
progressIndicator.progress = 70
// display the progress dialog
progressIndicator.show()

Indeterminate Circle progress Indicator

Indeterminate progress indicators move along a fixed track, growing and shrinking in size in circle shape.

The important part is adding style for the progress indicator.

For indeterminate circle progress we need to add,

style="@style/Widget.MaterialComponents.ProgressIndicator.Circle.Indeterminate"/>

style to create programatically:

R.style.Widget_MaterialComponents_ProgressIndicator_Circle_Indeterminate

Also, we need to set the progress attribute based on the process level.

android:progress=”70″ or progressIndicator.progress = 70.

Adding Indeterminate circle progress Indicator using XML,

<com.google.android.material.progressindicator.ProgressIndicator
android:id="@+id/progressCircleIndeterminate"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:layout_gravity="center"
android:progress="70"
style="@style/Widget.MaterialComponents.ProgressIndicator.Circle.Indeterminate"/>

Programatically using kotlin,

val progressIndicator = ProgressIndicator(
this, null, 0,
R.style.Widget_MaterialComponents_ProgressIndicator_Circle_Indeterminate)
// add progress indicator into layout
parentLayout.addView(progressIndicator, LinearLayout.LayoutParams(MATCH_PARENT, WRAP_CONTENT))
// set the progress
progressIndicator.progress = 70
// display the progress dialog
progressIndicator.show()

themeing Progress Indicators

Linear progress indicators are composed of two required elements:

1. Track
The track is a fixed width rule, with set boundaries for the indicator to travel along.

2. Indicator
The indicator animates along the length of the track.

trackColor — Used to set the color for the circle / linear progress track.

app:trackColor="@color/colorAccent"

indicatorColor — Used to set the color for the circle / linear progress indicator.

app:indicatorColor="@color/colorPrimary"

indicatorWidth — Used to change the indicator width for both linear / circle indicators.

app:indicatorWidth="20dp"

That’s it.

Thanks for reading.

Please provide your feedback in comments. Also, share if you like it.

You can download this example in GITHUB.

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Velmurugan Murugesan
Velmurugan Murugesan

Written by Velmurugan Murugesan

Lead Android Engineer @htcindia | @github contributor | Blog writer @howtodoandroid | Quick Learner