android studio: place recycleview on top of Edittext with transparent background

Issue

I'm trying to implement a chat activity where the background of the EditText is transparent, so on scrolling up the messages are visible behind the Edittext. But this is the result :

As you can see it is not perfect, I want to be able to scroll a little more to make messages above the edittext completely not behind it!

  <androidx.recyclerview.widget.RecyclerView

        android:layout_below="@+id/bar_layout"
        android:id="@+id/recycle_view"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        app:layoutManager="LinearLayoutManager"
        android:stackFromBottom="true"
        android:transcriptMode="alwaysScroll"
        android:overScrollMode="never"
        />

    <RelativeLayout
        android:id="@+id/bottom"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:padding="5dp"
        android:layout_margin="@dimen/_10sdp"
        android:background="@android:color/transparent"
        android:layout_alignParentBottom="true"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content">
        <EditText
            android:id="@+id/text_send"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_toLeftOf="@+id/btn_send"
            android:background="@drawable/sendmessage"
            android:hint="Type a message ... "
            android:padding="8dp"
            android:layout_centerVertical="true"
            />
        <ImageButton
            android:layout_width="35dp"
            android:layout_height="35dp"
            android:layout_margin="5dp"
            android:id="@+id/btn_send"
            android:background="@drawable/ic_paper_plane"
            android:layout_alignParentEnd="true"
            android:layout_alignParentRight="true"/>
    </RelativeLayout>

Solution

Wrap it all in a LinearLayout with orientation="vertical"

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
    xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    tools:context=".MainActivity"
    android:id="@+id/root">

    <androidx.recyclerview.widget.RecyclerView
        android:id="@+id/recycle_view"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:overScrollMode="never"
        android:stackFromBottom="true"
        android:transcriptMode="alwaysScroll"
        app:layoutManager="LinearLayoutManager" />

    <RelativeLayout
        android:id="@+id/bottom"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:padding="5dp"
        android:background="@android:color/transparent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_alignParentBottom="true">

        <EditText
            android:id="@+id/text_send"
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_centerVertical="true"
            android:layout_toLeftOf="@+id/btn_send"
            android:hint="Type a message ... "
            android:padding="8dp" />
        <ImageButton
            android:layout_width="35dp"
            android:layout_height="35dp"
            android:layout_margin="5dp"
            android:id="@+id/btn_send"
            android:background="#000000"
            android:layout_alignParentEnd="true"
            android:layout_alignParentRight="true"/>
    </RelativeLayout>

</RelativeLayout>

Answered By - Jakob