Bottom Navigation Views

Overview

Bottom navigation provide easy navigation for switching between 3 to 5 different views. It was a recently added to the Material Design spec, which provides an alternative between tabs and navigation drawers.

Setup

See the design support library setup instructions for the Gradle config you need to add. In particular, make sure you have updated to the v25 design library, since support for the bottom navigation support was recently added.

Next, simply declare a BottomNavigationView instance and make sure to set alignParentBottom=true to ensure that the view is placed on the bottom layout:

<android.support.constraint.ConstraintLayout 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">

    <android.support.design.widget.BottomNavigationView
        android:id="@+id/bottom_navigation"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
        app:menu="@menu/menu_bottom_navigation"></android.support.design.widget.BottomNavigationView>
</android.support.constraint.ConstraintLayout>

Next, similar to how menu items in the Toolbar, declare the tabbed items and the icons that will be displayed in a res/menu/menu_bottom_navigation.xml file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">
    <item
        android:id="@+id/action_favorites"
        android:enabled="true"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_favorite_white_24dp"
        android:title="@string/text_favorites"
        app:showAsAction="ifRoom" />
    <item
        android:id="@+id/action_schedules"
        android:enabled="true"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_access_time_white_24dp"
        android:title="@string/text_schedules"
        app:showAsAction="ifRoom" />
    <item
        android:id="@+id/action_music"
        android:enabled="true"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_audiotrack_white_24dp"
        android:title="@string/text_music"
        app:showAsAction="ifRoom" />
</menu>

You can create the icons by choosing them from the New -> Vector Asset:

Next, you can choose the Action and find the heart symbol:

Save the file as ic_favorite_white_24dp.xml. You can change the fill color after importing the vector drawable by modifying the fillColor:

<!-- change fill color to white -->
<path
   android:fillColor="#FFFFFFFF"
   android:pathData="M12,21.35l-1.45,-1.32C5.4,15.36 2,12.28 2,8.5 2,5.42 4.42,3 7.5,3c1.74,0 3.41,0.81 4.5,2.09C13.09,3.81 14.76,3 16.5,3 19.58,3 22,5.42 22,8.5c0,3.78 -3.4,6.86 -8.55,11.54L12,21.35z"/>
</path>

You can repeat this process for the other icons. You can also download the icons directly from this GitHub repo too.

Finally, you will need to set the navigation select handler manually:

BottomNavigationView bottomNavigationView = (BottomNavigationView) findViewById(R.id.bottom_navigation);

bottomNavigationView.setOnNavigationItemSelectedListener(new BottomNavigationView.OnNavigationItemSelectedListener() {
  @Override
  public boolean onNavigationItemSelected(@NonNull MenuItem item) {
    switch (item.getItemId()) {
      case R.id.action_favorites:
        // do something here
        return true;
      case R.id.action_schedules:
       // do something here
        return true;
      case R.id.action_music:
        // do something here
        return true;          
    } 
  }
});      

Using with fragments

You can use the bottom navigation drawer to swap fragments:

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
   @Override
   protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
     final FragmentManager fragmentManager = getSupportFragmentManager();

     // define your fragments here
     final Fragment fragment1 = new FirstFragment();
     final Fragment fragment2 = new SecondFragment();
     final Fragment fragment3 = new ThirdFragment(); 

     // handle navigation selection
     bottomNavigationView.setOnNavigationItemSelectedListener(               
        new BottomNavigationView.OnNavigationItemSelectedListener() {
          @Override
          public boolean onNavigationItemSelected(@NonNull MenuItem item) {
            switch (item.getItemId()) {
              case R.id.action_favorites:
                  FragmentTransaction fragmentTransaction = fragmentManager.beginTransaction();
                  fragmentTransaction.replace(R.id.flContainer, fragment1).commit();
                  return true;
              case R.id.action_schedules:
                  FragmentTransaction fragmentTransaction = fragmentManager.beginTransaction();
                  fragmentTransaction.replace(R.id.flContainer, fragment2).commit();
                  return true;
              case R.id.action_music:
                  FragmentTransaction fragmentTransaction = fragmentManager.beginTransaction();
                  fragmentTransaction.replace(R.id.flContainer, fragment3).commit();
                  return true;     
       }
     });
  }
}

Customizing styles

The bottom navigation view also can be customized with several different options, including app:itemBackground, app:itemIcontint, and app:ItemTextColor:

<android.support.design.widget.BottomNavigationView
  <!-- should match top primary color -->
  app:itemBackground="@color/colorPrimary"
  <!-- tint color for bottom navigation icons -->
  app:itemIconTint="@color/white"
  <!-- text color for bottom navigation text -->
  app:itemTextColor="@color/white">
</android.support.design.widget.BottomNavigationView>

References

• https://medium.com/@hitherejoe/exploring-the-android-design-support-library-bottom-navigation-drawer-548de699e8e0