Android PopupWindow elevation does not show shadow

Question

Android PopupWindow does not show shadows when the elevation is set. It appears to support it from the documentation. I am using 5.0 Lollipop.

Creating the popup

Answer 1

As answered by an Android developer.

If the inflated view doesn't have a background set, or the popup window itself doesn't have a background set (or has a transparent background) then you won't get a shadow.

which was my case and seems to be yours, since you are not using setBackgroundDrawable.

This worked for me

popupWindow.setBackgroundDrawable(new ColorDrawable(Color.WHITE));

I've opened a new issue suggesting that they update the documentation (https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=174919)