Is there a way to hide the system/navigation bar in Android ICS

Question

I\'d like to extend the discussion regarding hiding of the system/navigation bar at the bottom of the screen on Android Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0 and up) tablet devices.

Answer 1

You can not hide it unless you have rooted the device. But of course there is a workaround which might not fit with your requirement but several well known apps in the market at the moment using this strategy to achieve this disable menu bar feature for their apps.

• Grant admin privilege.
• Set password & lock the device using device admin profile api
• Then load what ever the UIs on top of the native lock screen. (Of course this will show background lock screen whenever a transition happens between activities. But if logic is organized well, then it will be smooth & less noticed by the user)
• When need to enable back, reset password to "" using resetPassword("", 0) of device policy manager object.

Answer 2

If your device is rooted this code will help you to hide system bar on ICS (I tested it on Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 and it works excellent):

ArrayList<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
Map<String, String> env = System.getenv();
for (String envName : env.keySet()) {
    list.add(envName + "=" + env.get(envName));
}

// Array containing the environment to start the new process in
String[] envp = (String[]) list.toArray(new String[0]);

String hidingCommand = "while [ true ]\n" + "do\n" + "killall com.android.systemui\n" + "done\n";
Runtime.getRuntime().exec(new String[] { "su", "-c", command }, envp);

myContext.sendBroadcast(new Intent("com.mycompany.myapp.ACTION_BARHIDDEN"));

Answer 3

may be is the button behavor is enought you can have a look in my answer here

you still have the bar but you can't exit app without reboot tablet

Answer 4

place this code in your application tag in manifest file to hide default tab bar

<Application
android:theme="@android:style/Theme.Black.NoTitleBar.Fullscreen" <!--
other parameters of application tag-->
>

and the then make a linear or relative layout and place it in your activity layout.

Answer 5

To hide status bar and navigation bar in android ics use

LinearLayout layout = (LinearLayout)findViewById(R.id.layout);
layout.setSystemUiVisibility(View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION);

Answer 6

You can hide the navigation bar on Android 4.0 and higher using the SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION flag. This snippet hides both the navigation bar and the status bar:

View decorView = getWindow().getDecorView();
// Hide both the navigation bar and the status bar.
// SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_FULLSCREEN is only available on Android 4.1 and higher, but as
// a general rule, you should design your app to hide the status bar whenever you
// hide the navigation bar.
int uiOptions = View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION
              | View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_FULLSCREEN;
decorView.setSystemUiVisibility(uiOptions

See the following: Hiding the Navigation Bar