Using the App Toolbar - TechGeekD/android_guides GitHub Wiki
ToolBar
was introduced in Android Lollipop, API 21 release and is the spiritual successor of the ActionBar. It's a ViewGroup
that can be placed anywhere in your XML layouts. ToolBar's appearance and behavior can be more easily customized than the ActionBar.
ToolBar works well with apps targeted to API 21 and above. However, Android has updated the AppCompat support libraries so the ToolBar can be used on lower Android OS devices as well. In AppCompat, ToolBar is implemented in the android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
class.
There are two ways to use Toolbar:
- Use a
Toolbar
as an Action Bar when you want to use the existing ActionBar facilities (such as menu inflation and selection,ActionBarDrawerToggle
, and so on) but want to have more control over its appearance. - Use a standalone
Toolbar
when you want to use the pattern in your app for situations that an Action Bar would not support; for example, showing multiple toolbars on the screen, spanning only part of the width, and so on.
The ToolBar is a generalization of the ActionBar system. The key differences that distinguish the ToolBar
from the ActionBar
include:
-
ToolBar
is aView
included in a layout like any otherView
- As a regular
View
, the toolbar is easier to position, animate and control - Multiple distinct
ToolBar
elements can be defined within a single activity
Keep in mind that you can also configure any ToolBar
as an Activity’s ActionBar, meaning that your standard options menu actions will be display within.
Note that the ActionBar continues to work and if all you need is a static bar at the top that can host icons and a back button, then you can safely continue to use ActionBar
.
To use Toolbar as an ActionBar, first ensure the AppCompat-v7 support library is added to your application build.gradle
(Module:app) file:
dependencies {
...
compile 'com.android.support:appcompat-v7:23.1.0'
}
Second, let's disable the theme-provided ActionBar. The easiest way is to have your theme extend from Theme.AppCompat.NoActionBar
(or the light variant) within the res/styles.xml
file:
<resources>
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
</style>
</resources>
Now you need to add a Toolbar
to your Activity layout file. One of the biggest advantages of using the Toolbar widget is that you can place the view anywhere within your layout. Below we place the toolbar at the top of a LinearLayout like the standard ActionBar:
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:orientation="vertical">
<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
android:id="@+id/toolbar"
android:minHeight="?attr/actionBarSize"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
app:titleTextColor="@android:color/white"
android:background="?attr/colorPrimary">
</android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar>
<!-- Layout for content is here. This can be a RelativeLayout -->
</LinearLayout>
As Toolbar is just a ViewGroup
and can be styled and positioned like any other view. Note that this means if you are in a RelativeLayout
, you need to ensure that all other views are positioned below the toolbar explicitly. The toolbar is not given any special treatment as a view.
Next, in your Activity or Fragment, set the Toolbar to act as the ActionBar by calling the setSupportActionBar(Toolbar)
method:
Note: When using the support library, make sure that you are importing android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
and not android.widget.Toolbar
.
import android.support.v7.app.AppCompatActivity;
import android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar;
public class MyActivity extends AppCompatActivity {
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_my);
// Find the toolbar view inside the activity layout
Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
// Sets the Toolbar to act as the ActionBar for this Activity window.
// Make sure the toolbar exists in the activity and is not null
setSupportActionBar(toolbar);
}
// Menu icons are inflated just as they were with actionbar
@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;
}
}
Next, we need to make sure we have the action items listed within a menu resource file such as res/menu/menu_main.xml
which is inflated above in onCreateOptionsMenu
:
<menu xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto">
<item
android:id="@+id/miCompose"
android:icon="@drawable/ic_compose"
app:showAsAction="ifRoom"
android:title="Compose">
</item>
<item
android:id="@+id/miProfile"
android:icon="@drawable/ic_profile"
app:showAsAction="ifRoom|withText"
android:title="Profile">
</item>
</menu>
For more details about action items in the Toolbar
including how to setup click handling, refer to our ActionBar guide. The above code results in the toolbar fully replacing the ActionBar at the top:
From this point on, all menu items are displayed in your Toolbar, populated via the standard options menu callbacks.
In many apps, the same toolbar can be used across multiple activities or in alternative layout resources for the same activity. In order to easily reuse the toolbar, we can leverage the layout include tag as follows. First, define your toolbar in a layout file in res/layout/toolbar_main.xml
:
<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
android:id="@+id/toolbar"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:background="?attr/colorPrimary"/>
Next, we can use the <include />
tag to load the toolbar into our activity layout XML:
<LinearLayout
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
android:orientation="vertical">
<!-- Load the toolbar here -->
<include
layout="@layout/toolbar_main"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"/>
<!-- Rest of content for the activity -->
</LinearLayout>
This allows us to create a consistent navigation experience across activities or configuration changes.
The Toolbar can be customized in many ways leveraging various style properties including android:theme
, app:titleTextAppearance
, app:popupTheme
. Each of these can be mapped to a style. Start with:
<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
android:id="@+id/toolbar"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:minHeight="?attr/actionBarSize"
android:theme="@style/ToolbarTheme"
app:titleTextAppearance="@style/Toolbar.TitleText"
app:popupTheme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Light"
/>
Now, we need to create the custom styles in res/styles.xml
with:
<!-- Base application theme. -->
<style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.NoActionBar">
<!-- Customize your theme here. -->
<item name="colorPrimary">@color/colorPrimary</item>
<item name="colorPrimaryDark">@color/colorPrimaryDark</item>
<item name="colorAccent">@color/colorAccent</item>
</style>
<style name="ToolbarTheme" parent="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.Dark.ActionBar">
<!-- This would set the toolbar's background color -->
<item name="android:background">@color/colorPrimary</item>
<!-- android:textColorPrimary is the color of the title text in the Toolbar -->
<item name="android:textColorPrimary">@android:color/holo_blue_light</item>
<!-- android:actionMenuTextColor is the color of the text of action (menu) items -->
<item name="actionMenuTextColor">@android:color/holo_green_light</item>
<!-- Enable these below if you want clicking icons to trigger a ripple effect -->
<!--
<item name="selectableItemBackground">?android:selectableItemBackground</item>
<item name="selectableItemBackgroundBorderless">?android:selectableItemBackground</item>
-->
</style>
<!-- This configures the styles for the title within the Toolbar -->
<style name="Toolbar.TitleText" parent="TextAppearance.Widget.AppCompat.Toolbar.Title">
<item name="android:textSize">21sp</item>
<item name="android:textStyle">italic</item>
</style>
This results in:
In certain situations, we might want to display an app icon within the Toolbar
. This can be done by adding this code into the Activity
// Find the toolbar view and set as ActionBar
Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
setSupportActionBar(toolbar);
// ...
// Display icon in the toolbar
getSupportActionBar().setDisplayShowHomeEnabled(true);
getSupportActionBar().setLogo(R.mipmap.ic_launcher);
getSupportActionBar().setDisplayUseLogoEnabled(true);
Next, we need to remove the left inset margin that pushes the icon over too far to the left by adding app:contentInsetStart
to the Toolbar
:
<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
android:id="@+id/toolbar"
app:contentInsetLeft="0dp"
app:contentInsetStart="0dp"
...
>
</android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar>
With that the icon should properly display within the ToolBar
as expected.
A Toolbar
is just a decorated ViewGroup
and as a result, the title contained within can be completely customized by embedding a view within the Toolbar such as:
<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
android:id="@+id/toolbar"
android:minHeight="?attr/actionBarSize"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
app:titleTextColor="@android:color/white"
android:background="?attr/colorPrimary">
<TextView
android:id="@+id/toolbar_title"
android:layout_width="wrap_content"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:text="Toolbar Title"
android:textColor="@android:color/white"
style="@style/TextAppearance.AppCompat.Widget.ActionBar.Title"
android:layout_gravity="center"
/>
</android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar>
This means that you can style the TextView
like any other. You can access the TextView
inside your activity with:
/* Inside the activity */
// Sets the Toolbar to act as the ActionBar for this Activity window.
Toolbar toolbar = (Toolbar) findViewById(R.id.toolbar);
setSupportActionBar(toolbar);
// Remove default title text
getSupportActionBar().setDisplayShowTitleEnabled(false);
// Get access to the custom title view
TextView mTitle = (TextView) toolbar.findViewById(R.id.toolbar_title);
Note that you must hide the default title using setDisplayShowTitleEnabled
. This results in:
We can configure the ToolBar
to react and change as the page scrolls:
For example, we can have the toolbar hide when the user scrolls down on a list or expand as the user scrolls to the header. There are many effects that can be configured by using the CoordinatorLayout inside the activity layout XML such as res/layout/activity_main.xml
:
<!-- CoordinatorLayout is used to create scrolling and "floating" effects within a layout -->
<!-- This is typically the root layout which wraps the app bar and content -->
<android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout
android:id="@+id/main_content"
xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent">
<!-- AppBarLayout is a wrapper for a Toolbar in order to apply scrolling effects. -->
<!-- Note that AppBarLayout expects to be the first child nested within a CoordinatorLayout -->
<android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout
android:id="@+id/appBar"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="wrap_content"
android:theme="@style/ThemeOverlay.AppCompat.ActionBar">
<!-- Toolbar is the actual app bar with text and the action items -->
<android.support.v7.widget.Toolbar
android:id="@+id/toolbar"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="?attr/actionBarSize"
android:background="?attr/colorPrimary"
app:layout_scrollFlags="scroll|enterAlways" />
</android.support.design.widget.AppBarLayout>
<!-- FrameLayout can be used to insert fragments to display the content of the screen -->
<!-- `app:layout_behavior` is set to a pre-defined behavior for scrolling -->
<FrameLayout
android:id="@+id/content"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
app:layout_behavior="@string/appbar_scrolling_view_behavior"
/>
</android.support.design.widget.CoordinatorLayout>
Refer to the guide on CoordinatorLayout and AppBarLayout for additional explanation and specifics. For troubleshooting, refer to this troubleshooting guide.
One common behavior seen in many modern apps is to hide or show the toolbar or make other changes as the user scrolls through a list:
The proper way of reacting to scroll behavior is leveraging the CoordinatorLayout built into the Design Support Library. There are a few other relevant resources around reacting to scrolling events:
-
Hiding or Showing Toolbar on Scroll - Great guide on an alternate strategy not requiring the
CoordinatorLayout
to replicate the behavior of the "Google Play Music" app. Sample code can be found here. -
Hiding or Showing Toolbar using CoordinatorLayout - Great guide that outlines how to use
CoordinatorLayout
to hide the Toolbar and the FAB when the user scrolls.
With these methods, your app can replicate any scrolling behaviors seen in common apps with varying levels of difficulty.