Shape Drawable Size not working

For me, setting the gravity of the item to "center" solved the issue.For example:

<item android:id="@android:id/progress" android:gravity="center">    <clip>        <shape>            <size android:height="2dp"/>            <solid android:color="@color/my_color"/>        </shape>    </clip></item>

It can work with a foreground. It seems like you can't set a background's gravity. But you can on a foreground. I checked API 21, 23 and 24 (well, with the Studio design preview) and the following places a solid circle dot on the ImageView.

<shape android:shape="oval" xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">    <solid android:color="@color/colorPrimary" />    <size android:height="8dp" android:width="8dp" /></shape>

With the layout snippet

    <ImageView            android:foreground="@drawable/list_new_dot"            android:foregroundGravity="right|center_vertical"            tools:src="@drawable/model_1_sm"            />

UPDATE: While it appears to work in the layout design tool, it doesn't look the same in the emulator. UPDATE 2: Since this answer has a few votes, you might want to check what I actually used in order to show a new indicator dot:https://gist.github.com/CapnSpellcheck/4d4638aefd085c703b9d990a21ddc1eb

Just to specify the user983447's answer - the size attribute does really mean a proportion. You should set the size for all shapes in your layer-list and it'll be used a as a proportion when scaling - like the layout_weight attribute of LinearLayout. So it's better to name it not a size but a weight

Below is a work-around how to implement top and bottom white lines without using the size attribute:

<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">    <item>        <shape>            <solid android:color="#fff" />        </shape>    </item>    <item android:top="1dp" android:bottom="1dp">        <shape>            <solid android:color="#888" />        </shape>    </item></layer-list>