Custom Translucent Android ActionBar

Question

I\'ve been scouring the interwebs (e.g. Android documentation, answers here, etc.) for the answer to what I thought would be a fairly trivial question. How do you achieve a

Answer 1

If you want your activity to be fullscreen but still show an actionbar, but with an alpha you have to request overlaymode for the actionbar in onCreate() of your activity:

getWindow().requestFeature(Window.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR_OVERLAY);

//getWindow().requestFeature(WindowCompat.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR_OVERLAY); << Use this for API 7+ (v7 support library) 

Then after you call setContentView(..) (since setContentView(..) also initializes the actionbar next to setting the content) you can set a background drawable on your actionbar:

getActionBar().setBackgroundDrawable(getResources().getDrawable(R.drawable.actionbar_bg));

which can be a shape drawable with an alpha put in res/drawable:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<shape xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" android:shape="rectangle"> 
    <solid android:color="#BB000000" /> 
</shape>

You could also do this completely programatically by creating a ColorDrawable:

getActionBar().setBackgroundDrawable(new ColorDrawable(Color.argb(128, 0, 0, 0)));

Otherwise ofcourse you can hide the actionbar completely; in that case you can set a custom theme on your activity in your manifest:

@android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar.Fullscreen

or programmatically by calling

getActionBar().hide();

Answer 2

The above code is absolutely correct for making an action bar.

Instead of

getActionBar().setBackgroundDrawable(new ColorDrawable(Color.argb(128, 0, 0, 0)))

use

getActionBar().setBackgroundDrawable(new ColorDrawable(Color.TRANSPARENT));

In this way, you will able to see the action bar fully transparent.

Answer 3

Step I : Firstly, Set your theme at styles.xml

    <style name="AppTheme.NoActionBar">
        <item name="windowActionBar">false</item>
        <item name="windowNoTitle">true</item>
    </style>

Step II : Second, you have to set theme to your activity at AndroidManifest.xml

    <activity android:name=".activity.YourActivity"
        android:theme="@style/AppTheme.NoActionBar"/>

Step III : Now, In your activity layout file set like this:

    <RelativeLayout
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="match_parent"
        android:background="@drawable/agri_bg_login">
        <android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
            android:layout_width="match_parent"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:id="@+id/tool_bar"
            android:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar"/>
    </RelativeLayout>

Finally, You can set it in your activity.

    Toolbar tool_bar = findViewById(R.id.tool_bar);
    setSupportActionbar(tool_bar);
    getSupportActionbar().setTitle("Your actionbar title");
    getSupportActionbar().setDisplayHomeAsUpEnabled(true);

That's all, You'll get result with transparent Actionbar. Also, Here if you want to display drawer toggle button and menu, It'll show them.

Answer 4

Here is how I got this to work:

1) Request for actionbar overlay programmatically by calling

       getWindow().requestFeature(Window.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR_OVERLAY);

this 'requestFeature()' must be requested from your activity 'onCreate()' method before calling for 'setContentView(R.layout.my_layout)':

2) set the actionbar color by calling setBackgroundDrawable() like so:

getSupportActionBar().setBackgroundDrawable(new ColorDrawable(Color.parseColor("#00212121")) );

this method requires either a reference to a drawable or you can also use a color parser to parse a hex color value (first 2 digits are used for alpha channel starting at #00 to #FF)

Note that I am using actionBarSherlok getSupportActionBar() but this should work with any action bar.

If you still cant get this to work, try adding this to your theme style

<item name="windowActionBarOverlay">true</item>
 <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/ActionBar.Transparent.Example</item>
 <item name="android:windowActionBarOverlay">true</item>

Answer 5

I just like to share with you the steps I took to achieve this:

1) At the OnCreate of your activity,

getWindow().requestFeature(Window.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR_OVERLAY);

then

getWindow().setFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TRANSLUCENT_NAVIGATION,
            WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_TRANSLUCENT_NAVIGATION);

This is done before setContentView.

2) After setContentView, you can do the following

 getSupportActionBar().setBackgroundDrawable(new ColorDrawable(Color.argb(0, 100, 181, 246)));

Where the alpha value of 0 means it is fully transparent.

Answer 6

In addition to the correct answer, if you are using AppcomatActivity, call supportRequestWindowFeature instead of

Old Version: getWindow().requestFeature(Window.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR_OVERLAY);

You want to use:

@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
    supportRequestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_ACTION_BAR_OVERLAY);
    super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
}