Skip to content

Extended ActionBar Guide

Jump to bottom
Nathan Esquenazi edited this page Jul 1, 2016 · 85 revisions

Overview

An ActionBar is located at the top of an activity and it can display any number of status or navigation related elements such as title, icon, buttons, or arbitrary action-related views.

This is typically used for displaying the title of the application and providing a primary navigation for the app. The ActionBar can contain primary action buttons as well as a drawer toggle icon for displaying the navigation drawer.

Note that we will be using the support library and AppCompatActivity for these examples since the library provides maximum compatibility with pre-3.0 Android versions. The APIs and usage are the same with the standard ActionBar just with small changes to the imported classes and class names. If you are not currently using the support library, check out this migration guide.

Usage

In the Defining ActionBar cliffnotes we looked at the basics of adding items to the ActionBar and handling clicks. In this section, we take a look at how to use AppCompatActivity to support all Android versions and also at several powerful and extensible ActionBar features:

  • Using the split action bar to have a top and bottom menu
  • Adding ActionView (app:action_layout) and SearchView widgets
  • Configuring icon order within ActionBar
  • Using ActionProvider and ShareActionProvider to enable richer functions
  • Configuring Home Icon to navigate "Up"
  • Inflating menu icons from fragments within the ActionBar

Setting up AppCompatActivity

In order to ensure that the ActionBar works on all Android versions, we are going to use AppCompatActivity to setup our support ActionBar. Follow the AppCompat setup guide to make sure you're including the library.

Once the library has been added, be sure to sync your project with the gradle file (Tools => Android => Sync Project with Gradle Files) and make sure any applicable activities are now extending from AppCompatActivity in order to enable the compatibility fragments and action bar:

public class MainActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
   // ...
}

and change the parent theme to a support compatible theme in values/styles.xml such as Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar:

<resources>
    <!-- Base application theme. -->
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
        <!-- Customize your theme here. -->
    </style>
</resources>

Now the support ActionBar is configured and ready to be used. However, one should note that the res/menu xml files now need to use an app: prefix for showAsAction as shown below:

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
      xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">
    <item
        android:id="@+id/action_refresh" 
        android:title="@string/action_refresh"
        android:icon="@drawable/ic_action_refresh"
        app:showAsAction="ifRoom" />
</menu>

Note the use of app:showAsAction instead of android:showAsAction in the case of adding support action bar items.

Populating Action Buttons

The action bar provides users access to the most important action items relating to the app's current context. Those that appear directly in the action bar with an icon and/or text are known as action buttons.

For the support ActionBar, just change onCreateOptionsMenu to use the compatibility inflater:

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar if it is present.
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.menu_main, menu);
    return true;
}

See the Defining the ActionBar cliffnotes for the basic details of adding items and handling clicks.

Configuring ActionBar Icon Order

You can control the order of items within the ActionBar using orderinCategory where each menu item has an integer specified and lower integers are displayed with a higher priority:

<item
   android:id="@+id/menu_ordinary"
   android:orderInCategory="200"
   app:showAsAction="ifRoom"
   android:title="Ordinary" />

<item
   android:id="@+id/menu_important"
   android:orderInCategory="20"
   app:showAsAction="ifRoom"
   android:title="Important" />

This can be useful to be explicit with the desired order based on importance of actions.

Custom ActionBar Styles

We can configure the ActionBar styles and properties by creating our own ActionBar theme styles. For example, we could add the following to res/values/styles.xml:

<resources>

    <!-- Define your colors in `res/values/colors.xml` -->
    <color name="simple_yellow">#ECD078</color>
    <color name="primary_blue">#53777A</color>

    <style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
        <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item>
        <item name="android:actionBarTabTextStyle">@style/MyActionBarTabText</item>

        <!-- Support library compatibility -->
        <item name="actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item>
        <item name="actionBarTabTextStyle">@style/MyActionBarTabText</item>
    </style>

    <style name="MyActionBar" parent="@style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
        <item name="android:background">@color/simple_yellow</item>
        <item name="android:titleTextStyle">@style/MyActionBar.TitleTextStyle</item>

        <!-- Support library compatibility -->
        <item name="background">@color/simple_yellow</item>
        <item name="titleTextStyle">@style/MyActionBar.TitleTextStyle</item>
    </style>

    <style name="MyActionBar.TitleTextStyle"
        parent="@style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Widget.ActionBar.Title">
        <item name="android:textColor">@color/primary_blue</item>
    </style>

    <style name="MyActionBarTabText" parent="@style/Widget.AppCompat.ActionBar.TabText">
        <item name="android:textColor">@color/primary_blue</item>
    </style>

</resources>

Now verify the theme for the application or activity within the AndroidManifest.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    package="com.codepath.example.servicesdemo"
    ...>
    <application
        ...
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >
</manifest>

Now your properties and styles will take affect within the ActionBar. This results in the following:

See the actionbar styling demo code for a working example. If you want to style the tabs for the ActionBar, see our Tabs Styling Cliffnotes.

Check out this styling the ActionBar section for more details. For an easier way to skin the ActionBar, check out the ActionBar Style Generator tool for easy styling.

Custom ActionBar Layout

In certain cases, you might want to change the styling of the ActionBar title more significantly. For example, you may want to tweak the icon, change the size of the title, tweak the color, or center the text. In order to achieve this, you can replace the default title with your own custom XML view. First, define your custom ActionBar XML in res/layout/actionbar_title.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:gravity="center"
    android:orientation="vertical" >
    <TextView
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:layout_gravity="center"
        android:text="@string/app_title"
        android:textColor="#ffffff"
        android:id="@+id/mytext"
        android:textSize="18dp" />
</LinearLayout>

Now we've defined the XML layout desired and we need to load this custom XML file and replace the ActionBar title with our customized XML inside the Activity by calling setCustomView:

import android.support.v7.app.ActionBar;
// in Activity#onCreate
getSupportActionBar().setDisplayOptions(ActionBar.DISPLAY_SHOW_CUSTOM); 
getSupportActionBar().setCustomView(R.layout.actionbar_title);

At this point, we now have replaced the default ActionBar with our preferred layout and have complete control over it's appearance. The above code results in:

If you want to include the app icon with the custom layout you need to append DISPLAY_SHOW_HOME as well:

getSupportActionBar().setDisplayOptions(ActionBar.DISPLAY_SHOW_CUSTOM | ActionBar.DISPLAY_SHOW_HOME);

Note you can still define an onCreateOptionsMenu method in your Activity to define the action buttons. This custom view will then share space with the action buttons, which normally are placed to the right side of the Action Bar.

Adding ActionView Items

If you want to provide a menu item beyond simply icon or text, such as providing a more interactive widget, an Action View enables you to do so. The most common Action View is the SearchView, which collapses to show only the search icon and expands to show an EditText when the user has clicked an icon. You can also use an Action View to create a custom layout too.

An ActionView is a full fledged view that is constructed via a layout XML file which is embedded into the ActionBar. First, you need to create the XML layout that will be embedded in the ActionBar in res/layout/action_view_button.xml:

<!-- res/layout/action_view_button.xml -->
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="match_parent"
    android:orientation="horizontal" >
    <Button
        android:id="@+id/btnCustomAction"
        android:layout_width="wrap_content"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:text="Button" />
</LinearLayout>

Next, we can attach that layout to any item by specifying the app:action_layout property:

<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">
    <item
        android:id="@+id/miActionButton"
        app:showAsAction="ifRoom"
        app:actionLayout="@layout/action_view_button" 
        android:title="Loading..." />
</menu>

and now the views specified in the layout are embedded in the ActionBar. The above code results in:

We can access a reference to the embedded ActionView in the Activity by overriding the onPrepareOptionsMenu method:

@Override
public boolean onPrepareOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
	MenuItem actionViewItem = menu.findItem(R.id.miActionButton);
        // Retrieve the action-view from menu
	View v = MenuItemCompat.getActionView(actionViewItem);
        // Find the button within action-view
	Button b = (Button) v.findViewById(R.id.btnCustomAction);
	// Handle button click here
	return super.onPrepareOptionsMenu(menu);
}

Using ActionView can help you add any custom views you'd like to your ActionBar.

Adding SearchView to ActionBar

One common example of an ActionView is the built-in SearchView which provides a simple search control within your application located in the ActionBar. First, we need to add the SearchView action item in the menu xml:

<!-- res/menu/menu.xml -->
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto" >
   <item android:id="@+id/action_search"
          android:orderInCategory="5"
          android:title="Search"
          android:icon="@android:drawable/ic_menu_search"
          app:showAsAction="ifRoom|collapseActionView"
          app:actionViewClass="android.support.v7.widget.SearchView" />
</menu>

Notice that the app:showAsAction attribute also includes the "collapseActionView" value which collapses the search into an icon until clicked. The above code results in the search view in the action bar:

Now we need to hook up a listener for when a search is performed:

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    MenuInflater inflater = getMenuInflater();
    inflater.inflate(R.menu.main, menu);
    MenuItem searchItem = menu.findItem(R.id.action_search);
    final SearchView searchView = (SearchView) MenuItemCompat.getActionView(searchItem);
    searchView.setOnQueryTextListener(new OnQueryTextListener() {
       @Override
       public boolean onQueryTextSubmit(String query) {
            // perform query here
      
            // workaround to avoid issues with some emulators and keyboard devices firing twice if a keyboard enter is used
            // see https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=24599
            searchView.clearFocus();

            return true;
       }

       @Override
       public boolean onQueryTextChange(String newText) {
           return false;
       }
   });
   return super.onCreateOptionsMenu(menu);
}

We can expand the SearchView any time programmatically by calling expandActionView on the search view:

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    // ... lookup the search view
    MenuItem searchItem = menu.findItem(R.id.action_search);
    final SearchView searchView = (SearchView) MenuItemCompat.getActionView(searchItem);
    // Expand the search view and request focus 
    searchItem.expandActionView();
    searchView.requestFocus();
}

We can customize the search icon and text color with this approach with styles or the Java code below:

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    // ... lookup the search view
    MenuItem searchItem = menu.findItem(R.id.action_search);
    final SearchView searchView = (SearchView) MenuItemCompat.getActionView(searchItem);
    // Use a custom search icon for the SearchView in AppBar
    int searchImgId = android.support.v7.appcompat.R.id.search_button; 
    ImageView v = (ImageView) searchView.findViewById(searchImgId);
    v.setImageResource(R.drawable.search_btn);
    // Customize searchview text and hint colors
    int searchEditId = android.support.v7.appcompat.R.id.search_src_text;
    EditText et = (EditText) searchView.findViewById(searchEditId);
    et.setTextColor(Color.BLACK);
    et.setHintTextColor(Color.BLACK);
}

See this writeup for details on the compatibility action views outlined above. For more advanced searching functionality, check out the Creating a Search Interface guide.

Refer to this tutorial for a guide on how to add autocomplete to your searchview in the actionbar.

Using ActionProvider and ShareActionProvider

Similar to an action view, an action provider replaces an action button with a customized layout. However, unlike an action view, an action provider takes control of all the action's behaviors and an action provider can display a submenu when pressed.

You can build your own action provider by extending the ActionProvider class, but Android provides some pre-built action providers such as ShareActionProvider which facilitates a "share" action by showing a list of possible apps for sharing.

You can learn about this provider in the Sharing Content with Intents guide. You can also see the ActionProvider section of the ActionBar guide for more details.

Navigating Up with the App Icon

To enable the app icon as an Up button, call setDisplayHomeAsUpEnabled.

Up Button

"Up" in contrast to the Back button takes the user to the logical parent screen of the current screen. This is not based on the navigation history but rather on the relationship between screens. For example, in a mail client "Back" might take the user to a previous email but "Up" would always take the user to the list of mail in the inbox.

First, specify that the home icon should be used as "Up":

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
    setContentView(R.layout.activity_details);
    // Enable up icon
    getSupportActionBar().setDisplayHomeAsUpEnabled(true);
    ...
}

We can also explicitly override the "Up" button in the AppBar in the onOptionsItemSelected by checking for the android.R.id.home id being selected:

    @Override
    public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
        switch (item.getItemId()) {
        // This is the up button
        case android.R.id.home:
            NavUtils.navigateUpFromSameTask(this);
            // overridePendingTransition(R.animator.anim_left, R.animator.anim_right);
            return true;
        default:
            return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
        }
    }

This allows us to configure the transition or otherwise handle behavior when the "up" button is pressed.

Compile-time Configuration

To specify the "up" activity at compile-time we can set the logical parent of an activity in the AndroidManifest.xml:

<activity 
        android:name="com.example.myfirstapp.ChildActivity"
        android:label="@string/title_activity_display_message"
        android:parentActivityName="com.example.myfirstapp.ParentActivity" >
        <!-- Parent activity meta-data to support API level 7+ -->
        <meta-data
            android:name="android.support.PARENT_ACTIVITY"
            android:value="com.example.myfirstapp.ParentActivity" />
</activity>

And now when the home icon is pressed on the child, the parent activity will always be shown.

If you want to navigate up from current activity to it's Parent activity, but want that Parent activity preserves it's state, also specify launch mode for the parent activity in the AndroidManifest.xml.

android:launchMode="singleTop"

Run-time Configuration

If we want to set the "up" button dynamically rather than in the manifest, we can override the getSupportParentActivityIntent() method on the activity returning the desired intent based on the argument passed in:

public static final String PACKAGE_NAME = "com.myapplication.";
public static final String PARENT_NAME_EXTRA = "ParentClassName";

@Override
public Intent getSupportParentActivityIntent() {
    // Extract the class name of our parent
    Intent parentIntent = getIntent();
    String className = parentIntent.getStringExtra(PARENT_NAME_EXTRA);
    // Create intent based on the parent class name
    Intent newIntent = null;
    try {
         //you need to define the class with package name
         newIntent = new Intent(this, Class.forName(PACKAGE_NAME + className));
    } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    // Return the created intent as the "up" activity
    return newIntent;
}

Then when launching a new activity, we need to supply the ParentClassName as an extra to control the desired parent:

Intent intent = new Intent(this, ChildActivity.class);
intent.putExtra(ChildActivity.PARENT_NAME_EXTRA, "ParentActivity");
startActivity(intent);

Read more about "Up" navigation within the official guide.

Configuring the ActionBar from a Fragment

Configuring the action bar from a fragment is very similar to how it's done from an activity, with a couple small differences. By default, Android assumes that fragments don't want to contribute items to the action bar. When a fragment actually wants to add items to the action bar, it needs to tell Android about this by calling setHasOptionsMenu(true) in it's onCreate() method:

@Override
public void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);

    // ...

    setHasOptionsMenu(true);
}

Now Android knows to call the fragment's onCreateOptionsMenu(...) and related methods.

Keep in mind that any action bar items added by the fragment will be appended to any existing action bar items. This includes action bar items added by the containing activity. You can use the orderInCategory property of your action bar items to control the ordering yourself.

Adding items to the menu is very similar to how it's done in an activity. Inside a fragment, Android provides a MenuInflater for you in the callback:

@Override
public void onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu, MenuInflater inflater) {
    // Inflate the menu; this adds items to the action bar.
    inflater.inflate(R.menu.my_menu, menu);
    
    // ...
}

Handling clicks is exactly the same as if you were in an activity. The only difference is that the fragment's onOptionsItemSelected(...) method only gets called if the activity's onOptionsItemSelected(...) doesn't handle the click.

@Override
public boolean onOptionsItemSelected(MenuItem item) {
   // handle item selection
   switch (item.getItemId()) {
      case R.id.my_item:
         // Handle this selection
         return true;
      default:
         return super.onOptionsItemSelected(item);
   }
}

Configuring a Split-Action Bar

Split action bar provides a separate bar at the bottom of the screen to display all action items when the activity is running on a narrow screen (such as a portrait-oriented handset). This is helpful when you want to display a top and bottom row of actions for a context.

For Holo-based themes, to add support for the split-action bar, just add the option to the manifest for that activity:

<manifest ...>
    <activity android:uiOptions="splitActionBarWhenNarrow" ... >
        <meta-data android:name="android.support.UI_OPTIONS"
                   android:value="splitActionBarWhenNarrow" />
    </activity>
</manifest>

Note: Split action bar **only works with Holo-based themes. splitActionBarWhenNarrow is not supported by Theme.Material or the appcompat-v7 actionbar backport. If you wish to use either Theme.Material or appcompat-v7, you will need to create your own "split action bar", by having a Toolbar at the bottom of the screen that you populate separately. See the sample code for a split toolbar here.

Libraries

  • AppCompatActivity - The support library for ActionBar which provides backwards compatibility to nearly all Android versions.
  • StyleGenerator - Use this nifty web tool to generate an ActionBar theme easily.

References

Created by CodePath with much help from the community. Contributed content licensed under cc-wiki with attribution required. You are free to remix and reuse, as long as you attribute and use a similar license.

Finding these guides helpful?

We need help from the broader community to improve these guides, add new topics and keep the topics up-to-date. See our contribution guidelines here and our topic issues list for great ways to help out.

Check these same guides through our standalone viewer for a better browsing experience and an improved search. Follow us on twitter @codepath for access to more useful Android development resources.

Clone this wiki locally