title: How to Make a Custom Overlay View Transparent on top of a SurfaceView?
body: <p>OK I've gone through many similar questions here on SO and around the web, to no avail.
  I'm just trying to overlay a transparent view on top of a SurfaceView.. and eventually draw a rectangle on it, such that it appears to overlay the camera preview.</p>
  
  <p>I cannot get the custom view to be transparent, it blocks-out the underlying camera preview.  Any suggestions?</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;RelativeLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
      android:layout_width="fill_parent"
      android:layout_height="fill_parent"
      &gt;
      &lt;FrameLayout 
          android:layout_alignParentTop="true"
          android:layout_width="fill_parent"
          android:layout_height="400dip"&gt;
          &lt;SurfaceView
              android:layout_width="fill_parent"
              android:layout_height="fill_parent" 
              android:id="@+id/drawSurface"  /&gt;
          &lt;com.bobby.facecapture.FaceOverlayView
              android:id="@+id/drawOverlay"
              android:background="@android:color/transparent" 
              android:layout_width="200dip"     
              android:layout_height="200dip"    
          /&gt;
      &lt;/FrameLayout&gt;
  &lt;/RelativeLayout&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The 200x200 is just temporary, to prove that it is indeed overlaying the other view.</p>
  
  <p>The FaceOverlayView is just a custom view - deriving directly from View, without overriding anything (for now).</p>
  
  <p>I get a black rectangle on top of the camera preview</p>