How to get a seamless transition from app bar to status bar - android

So I'm currently trying to migrate an app to use Material 3 consistently. Previously it was stiched together without any real design concept. Now I want to actually look like something to take serious.
One thing I haven't been able to figure out is how to give the status bar the same color as the title bar. Currently it looks like this:
The official documentation however lists the seamless version in the "What's new" section:
I'm currently using a LinearLayout with the Theme.Material3.DayNight theme (without any modifications for now) and from what I was able to learn from the documentation I need to make use of components like MaterialToolbar inside a AppBarLayout inside a CoordinatorLayout so everything works as intended. I tried doing that and the scrolling and lifting now works as described in the documentation, but the color of the status bar remains unchanged unfortunately.
I'm not sure at this point if my expectations are wrong or if my code is. I believe that there has to be a built-in mechanism that automatically adjusts the status bar's colour to dynamically match the one of the app bar. I might be wrong though and the material-components-android expects me to implement the logic myself. In any case, could someone point me towards an example implementation where this transition is seamless? This way I could modify my code to implement this behaviour.
I'm currently using com.google.android.material:material:1.5.0 in case this is relevant to the problem.
Thanks in advance!

Related

Is there a way to set up an app bar/action bar in an Android app without going through the appcompat library?

I'm having a "this can't be right moment" trying to learn Android app development. I want to add some buttons to the top bar (app bar, toolbar, action bar, etc) of my Activity. Apparently this thing is called the app bar. But when I read the docs, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills:
This class describes how to use the v7 appcompat support library's Toolbar widget as an app bar.
Why do I have to use something called "appcompat" to add a toolbar? I don't care about backwards compatibility right now, I'm just coding an app to learn. Normally backwards compatibility shims/layers are an optional thing. I just want to do this in the most straightforward way at the moment - it'll be easier for me to learn that way.
There are other ways to implement an app bar—for example, some themes set up an ActionBar as an app bar by default—but using the appcompat Toolbar makes it easy to set up an app bar that works on the widest range of devices, and also gives you room to customize your app bar later on as your app develops.
Again, this sounds like the docs are saying that the method they advocate is not the simplest and most basic way, and that there's another. Then one of the very first steps in the tutorial is:
In the app manifest, set the element to use one of appcompat's NoActionBar themes. Using one of these themes prevents the app from using the native ActionBar class to provide the app bar.
Huh? So the first step to getting a toolbar is to turn off the toolbar? At this point I feel like I can hear clown horns going off. Am I being pranked? I don't think Google realize how bonkers this all sounds to a complete beginner.
Is there a way to add buttons/actions to the default Material UI ActionBar in an Activity, without going through the appcompat package?

How to get the files necessary for a floating action button?

All across the internet and several Stack Overflow pages, there are detailed instructions for the implementation of Floating Action Buttons, but nobody explains where I might be able to acquire the icon myself. Is everyone creating his own action buttons for his UI, or is there a downloadable library somewhere I have yet to discover?
Please link and explain!
Google doesn't provide any code for it, but it should be pretty basic to build yourself.
If you'd prefer to use a library for it, I use this one by shamanland: floating-action-button. You can change the color and icon displayed, and have it auto-hide when the user is scrolling.
There's another popular library by futuresimple here: android-floating-action-button. It includes support for sub-actions with text labels, and two button sizes, but won't give you auto-hiding on scrolling. I think I started with this one and switched to shamanland's, but I don't remember why.
I am creating Floating Action Button and shadow with .xml files as explained here and using icons from icons8.com, it has Android Lollipop specific icons.

How to create android screen (activity) like the Google Play Store v4.9/5.0 (Parallax image+Fading in action bar)

I guess the question I've placed explains itself clearly. Tried different solutions available on the internet but getting more than confused.
First I tried to get the fading effect in action bar From this tutorial here
But the result was, that the imageview that was placed on the activity screen, along with the action bar, the image too started exhibiting the same properties. Tried to alter, the action bar became fully transparent, and image still continued to exhibit the property.
Any help would be greatly obliged. Thanks
You can take a look into the Google IO 2014 app which has this effect.
Source code and information on the google dev blog : http://android-developers.blogspot.fr/2014/08/material-design-in-2014-google-io-app.html
You can also use library like Parraloid : https://github.com/chrisjenx/Paralloid
Combine it with the tutorial for fading the actionbar and you're good to go.

What layout does the ActionBar use?

I'm trying to do minor tweaks to the layout of items inside an ActionBar, and hitting a lot of problems. It would help if I knew (or even better: could override!) the layout which Android is using for the ActionBar itself.
(Android's layout system doesn't allow you to fully control layout of "items" direct from the item itself - all the options are enabled/disabled based on what type the parent/container layout has)
So, for instance...
try to make a custom ActionView that takes "all remaining space" (because you have no title / don't need a title)
...everything breaks. There are lots of workarounds, all of which have their own bugs (I've tried 3 from SO already, and they all break on different versions of Android / different handsets)
this would be TRIVIAL if I could set the ActionBar's layout to "RelativeLayout" and use "layout_toLeftOf" etc
...but the docs don't seem to answer this, nor do they provide a way of setting it. Any ideas? I don't want to have lots of hardcoded, broken code to workaround the API (because it'll make maintaining this app a nightmare :( )
Have you looked at ActionBarSherlock? It's a support library extension that implements action bar on all versions of Android using single API. Also, when it comes to layouts, I often find it very useful to look at the source code. You can find action bar layouts on the very top of the list here.
Load the view hierarchy and then you will be able to see the views that compose any layout.
http://developer.android.com/tools/debugging/debugging-ui.html

How to style the children Views from the parent View?

I am currently trying to get the look of my app right. But I am having problems figuring out how to even set up a way to change themes. For one thing, is there even a way to change styles through code? I checked the method list and I saw nothing. This leads me to my actual question; is there a way that, like CSS, in which you style the parent, and then have it trickle down but also changed depending on the View? I looked at the Android docs, and they did not show any examples of this. Hopefully someone can give me an idea as to how to accomplish this, or if its not possible, to let me know that as well. Thanks in advance.
You should be able to do this using styles and themes. I've implemented this using Jake whartons Sherlock action bar. (I'm not certain if it's necessary) It involves using the comparability library which gives you the ability to use fragments and loaders as well. Look at his democode at http://actionbarsherlock.com/download.html. Look for where themes are mentioned and you will find the information you need. In the demo app you can change the theme in the top right corner and see how it affects the activities look and feel. It also shows many of the features available and the code to write them. I have found this an invaluable resource and it should show you how to theme your app.

Categories

Resources