# Android XML Question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/android-xml-question/749061>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 15, 2016, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/android-xml-question/749061 "2016-03-15T13:24:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Tehanu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ee7513/32.png) [@Tehanu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tehanu)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2016, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/android-xml-question/749061/1 "2016-03-15T13:24:31Z")

</div>

I am a second-year computer science student helping a professor in another department develop a custom app for a research project. My task right now is to write code to flash an image on a screen, accompanied by an audible sound, at timed intervals.

I’ve had no experience with Android app development before this. Based on what I know, I think I can add PNG files to the res/drawable folder and incorporate them in an XML layout that I can then reference in the timer code.

Here is my question: Can I have a black background, and then flash, say, a yellow star using PNGs bundled in XML code and cast as a layout? I don’t know the terminology. Would this best be done in a view? If a layout is better, what sort of layout? Linear?

Thank you,  
Rebecca