Google Maps v2 Marker zOrdering - Set to top

Question

I know there are a few threads around on this topic but i havent yet found a good enough solution.

I NEED to place a marker over the top of all other markers. How do i do this?

I have tried adding this marker before and after all other markers, however the ordering seems to be from bottom (front) to top (back) on the map view. This is not acceptable as I want to center on a marker which is in front of all markers.

I know that Polygons can be zOrdered but I would MUCH prefer a nicely styled graphic!

In-fact you can't order a Polygon over a marker!

"The order in which this polygon is drawn with respect to other overlays, including Polylines, GroundOverlays and TileOverlays, but not Markers. An overlay with a larger z-index is drawn over overlays with smaller z-indices. The order of overlays with the same z-index value is arbitrary. The default is 0." - https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/android/reference/com/google/android/gms/maps/model/Polygon

Does anyone have any ideas on this?

Answer 1

Aiden Fry's answer works if you do actually display an InfoWindow. If you don't, the marker won't come to the front. Here is a hack to make it come to the front anyway:

Create a custom InfoWindowAdapter that displays a 0dp info window:

public class MapWindowAdapter implements GoogleMap.InfoWindowAdapter {
    private Context context = null;

    public MapWindowAdapter(Context context) {
        this.context = context;
    }

    // Hack to prevent info window from displaying: use a 0dp/0dp frame
    @Override
    public View getInfoWindow(Marker marker) {
        View v = ((Activity) context).getLayoutInflater().inflate(R.layout.no_info_window, null);
        return v;
    }

    @Override
    public View getInfoContents(Marker marker) {
        return null;
    }
}

Here is the code for the layout:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
              android:orientation="vertical"
              android:layout_width="0dp"
              android:layout_height="0dp">
</LinearLayout>

When you set up your map, set the adapter and custom InfoWindowAdapter and OnMarkerClickListener (using showInfoWindow and returning true as AIden Fry advised):

mMap.setInfoWindowAdapter(new MapWindowAdapter(this));

//Call showInfoWindow to put marker on top of others.
myMarker.showInfoWindow();

This is not beautiful, but I didn't find any other way to deal with z-indexing without using info windows.

Answer 2

This was added in Google Play Services 9.2 (June 27, 2016)

The new MarkerOptions.zIndex() sets the stack order of a marker in relation to other markers on the map. Read more about marker z-indexes and the effect of z-index on click events. (Issue 4688)

Answer 3

Whilst not the perfect solution! I have figured out how to show a selected (tapped) marker over all other markers by consuming the onMarkerClick event. Returning TRUE will consume this event, so we have to do the showInfoWindow and zoom to center

    @Override
    public boolean onMarkerClick(Marker marker) {

       //Manually open the window
       marker.showInfoWindow();

       //Animate to center
       sMapFrag_v2.getMap().animateCamera(CameraUpdateFactory.newLatLng(marker.getPosition());

       //Consume the method
       return true;
    }