Custom Notification View

Question

I would like to create a notification icon view that looks similar to the Google+ app\'s notification. The difference will be that I need to be able to change the color at runti

Answer 1

I solved this by doing the following.

Created this to make the rounded corner shape with a solid color. This also adds a translucent black to give it a pressed look against a blackground. res/drawable/shape_notification.xml

The layer drawable will be used as the actual drawable on the action bar item. It has the background (written above) overlayed with the wrench icon. res/drawable/layer_customizer.xml

Java code to change the color. The target view is the object that is assigned the layer_customizer drawable. The color passed in will change the shape_notification.xml's solid tag color.

public static void setCustomizerDrawableColor(final View target, final int color) {
  final Drawable d = target.getDrawable();
  LayerDrawable layer = (LayerDrawable)d;
  GradientDrawable gradient = (GradientDrawable)layer.getDrawable(0);
  gradient.setColor(color);
  gradient.invalidateSelf();
  layer.invalidateSelf();
  target.invalidate();
}

Create a layout using these layers. res/layout/actionview_customizer.xml

To get the custom layout to put into the ActionBar add this menu item into it: res/menu/actionbar_main.xml

Then after loading the Action Bar use this code to get the handle to the button. This happens in your Activity.

@Override
public boolean onCreateOptionsMenu(Menu menu) {
    getMenuInflater().inflate(R.menu.actionbar_main, menu);
    final ActionBar actionBar = getActionBar();
    final MenuItem customizerItem = menu.findItem(R.id.MenuItemCustomize);
    View v = customizerItem.getActionView();
    customizerActionView = (ImageButton) v;
    customizerActionView.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {
        public void onClick(View v) {
            onOptionsItemSelected(customizerItem);
        }
    });
}

If you want to see the full source working together look at the app source code I use this in. http://code.google.com/p/motivatormaker-android/source/browse/MakeMotivator/src/com/futonredemption/makemotivator/activities/MainActivity.java