title: How to create consistent Material Design UIs if elevation attribute is not available on pre lollipop devices
body: <p>Many of the Material Design UIs if not all are dependent on drop shadows. But sadly the elevation attribute is only present on Lollipop devices. So how to create a single consistent UI for your application if something as simple as drop shadows is not available on pre lollipop build versions?</p>
  
  <p>There are of course some workarounds such as creating two versions of each layout, using nine patch drawables, using CardView, etc. But they all have certain problems:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>They require creating two versions of every layout, if you wan't to use the lollipop APIs as well for supported devices.</li>
  <li>Hard to implement for custom views with different shapes.</li>
  <li>Require separate drawables for every view, cluttering up the drawables folder.</li>
  <li>The shadows are considered a part of the view itself, so side by side placed views with the same elevation require use of negative margins.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>So what is the solution to creating Material Design UIs that work on both Lollipop as well as pre Lollipop devices?</p>