Action bar app icon missing with Android 5

Question

Just rebuilt my app using the Android 5 SDK and associated appcompat.

Seems to work fine but my app icon is no longer showing in top left hand corner. The icon to open

Answer 1

You shouldn't have an icon in an API OS 5+ app. By default it is not displayed (and this is the preferred behavior). The Toolbar docs specifically state this:

"In modern Android UIs developers should lean more on a visually distinct color scheme for toolbars than on their application icon. The use of application icon plus title as a standard layout is discouraged on API 21 devices and newer."

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/widget/Toolbar.html

Answer 2

I too noticed that the default projects created by Android Studio were missing the icon in the action bar. Here's how I fixed it.

Disclaimer: This solution will result in in the Material theme being dropped in favor of the older JellyBean/Kitkat styles.

First, change themes setting in styles.xml from this:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">

To this:

<style name="AppTheme" parent="android:Theme.Holo.Light.DarkActionBar">

Now change all your Activities to inherit from android.app.Activity instead of android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity. That is:

Change this:

import android.support.v7.app.ActionBarActivity;

public class MainActivity extends ActivityBarActivity {

To this:

import android.app.Activity;

public class MainActivity extends Activity {

The end of result of doing this is an app that has the Holo theme more commonly seen on Jelly Bean and Kitkat.

Answer 3

Use the code below in onCreate:

getSupportActionBar().setDisplayShowHomeEnabled(true);
getSupportActionBar().setLogo(R.drawable.ic_launcher);
getSupportActionBar().setDisplayUseLogoEnabled(true);

Answer 4

Make sure to extend ActionBarActivity rather than Activity. And add the following code:

getSupportActionBar().setDisplayShowHomeEnabled(true);
getSupportActionBar().setLogo(R.drawable.ic_launcher);
getSupportActionBar().setDisplayUseLogoEnabled(true);