Develop Reference

Hiding default navigation bar in app on Android devices

Currently working on a fullscreen mobile app, building using react-native. I have managed to hide the status bar and default navigation bar on Android devices. However, when I start to put in text input tags that prompts a keyboard on the screen, the default navigation bar re-appears and could not be hidden even I've dismissed the keyboard.
Is there any way to prevent the default navigation bar re-appears when the keyboard pops up?
The reasons are that I need to remove the navigation bar to have enough space to locate the needed components on the app UI design. If the navigation bar re-appears the design will be messed up. Thank you for any advice.

I think this is what you're looking for:
static navigationOptions = {
header: null,
};
Put this on top of each screen

Hiding the Status Bar under Android 4.2.2 (SDK 17)

Is it possible to permanently hide Navigation/Status Bar under Android 4.2.2
This solution seems not working under Jelly Bean.
I have GalaxyTab 3 (10.1) and hidding of Status Bar has no effect.
It's hidden on application Start on every screens, but i can expand it.
Problem occurs also after rooting device.
Somebody has faced it before (there is also video how to fix it):
forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=37466852
So my question is:
Is there any way to do this on application level?

Chris Banes and Roman Nurik have develop this usefull tool to controls the System UI easily
https://gist.github.com/chrisbanes/73de18faffca571f7292

No, it seems like there is no way to do this for your entire application on tablets running 4.+. Also, fully disabling it so it never appears is NOT possible.
However, the solution you linked does sort of work for Android 4.2.2, (tested on Nexus S and 10 inch tablet on emulator) but even when it works it reloads the status bar if certain user interactions occur to allow navigation (for example, pressing the menu button on a phone). So this means you should plan on spamming the flag every now and then.
I personally tried with this code in my oncreate:
View decorView = getWindow().getDecorView();
int uiOptions = View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_FULLSCREEN;
decorView.setSystemUiVisibility(uiOptions);
// Remember that you should never show the action bar if the
// status bar is hidden, so hide that too if necessary.
ActionBar actionBar = getActionBar();
actionBar.hide();
Which resulted in:
With the 4.2.2 phone the actionBar below also disappears, this does not seem to be possible for tablets.
Coming from the Android documentation about hiding the status bar, it seems that on Android 4.0 or lower, you would be able to set the fullscreen flag for the entire application and be done with it, but this has been changed to the piece of code above.
Next, the UI documentation has this to say:
The SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LOW_PROFILE flag replaces the STATUS_BAR_HIDDEN flag. When set, this flag enables “low profile" mode for the system bar or navigation bar. Navigation buttons dim and other elements in the system bar also hide. Enabling this is useful for creating more immersive games without distraction for the system navigation buttons.
So I guess it could be that the galaxy tab 3 requires some playing around with these kinds of flags and does not support actually hiding the status bar but rather prefers making it "less visible" ...
Finally, the setSystemUiVisibility method has some great examples if you're still interested in making sure the status bar stays hidden throughout your application.

Please note, that the status bar and the navigation bar are two completely different things. The navigation bar contains the back, home, and recent apps buttons, while the status bar contains the notifications, clock, battery, etc... The status bar can be easyly hidden with flags like SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_FULLSCREEN, but more convenient, using this as your app base theme:
android:theme="#android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar.Fullscreen"
In tablets, the navigation bar often consists the status bar, so if the navbar is visible, the status bar will be too. You can't just hide the status bar, because then you would have to hide the nav bar too.
The purpose of you can't hide the navigation bar forever, is that the user must be able to control his device and navigate as he wants to.
You can't hide the navigation bar before 4.0, and as in the developer guide says, you can hide the nav bar with the SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION flag, however, it won't stay hidden once the user touches the tablet. More explanation here: Android Developers - Hiding the Navigation Bar
In 4.4 KitKat, a new API was introduced, the immersive mode, with that you can hide the navigation bar and still make the user to be able to interact with your app, without the navigation bar revealing itself. The user can swipe down from the bottom of his screen to make it visible again, this clears the SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_IMMERSIVE flag. If you want to make the navigation bar disappear when the user doesn't interact with it, then you can use the SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_IMMERSIVE_STICKY flag, so it will disappear if the user finishes with it. More explanation here: Android Developers - Android 4.4 API
Also immersive tutorial: Android Developers - Using Immersive Full-Screen Mode
Also, make sure you are targetting the API 19, and only use this flag, when your app runs on API 19 or later. More on checking API version: Here (StackOverflow)

Hiding the Status Bar under Android 4.2.2 (SDK 17)
This solution worked for me.
getWindow().getDecorView().setSystemUiVisibility(8);

try this..its working for me..
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
getWindow().setFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN,windowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN);
this.requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE);
setContentView(R.layout.about_app_phone);
}

How to add an action flow button on the navigation bar?

From the article "Say Goodbye to the Menu Button "
it seems now the menu button is going to the action bar.
"If you’ve already developed an app to support Android 2.3 and lower,
then you might have noticed that when it runs on a device without a
hardware Menu button (such as a Honeycomb tablet or Galaxy Nexus), the
system adds the action overflow button beside the system navigation. "
But since I do not want the action bar takes the space, and I only need one menu button there, I hope I had a menu button within the navigation bar at the bottom.
How to do that?
[Update] From one aplication's code, it seems if I set the target level is lower, and use the add menu function, the menu button can be put with the navigation bar at the bottom. But anyway, as Samus Arin said, if there is only button for the menu, it doesn't make sense to build a action bar.

You can develop for newer releases, and then detect if there is a menu-button on the device. If there is not, show your own in the UI.
http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/ViewConfiguration.html#hasPermanentMenuKey()
Ex.
if(ViewConfiguration.hasPermanentMenuKey(context)){ Has menu-button } else { Does not have menu-button, show in UI }
As you said, if you want the overflow-button in the navigation-bar you have to set the target-sdk to 13 or lower.
IMO this option should be given to the developer regardless of targetsdk.
UPDATE: hasPermanentMenuKey() can only be used in SDK>13, so you have to check this manually in your code.

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

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.
There's already a thread ( Is there a way to hide the system bar in Android 3.0? It's an internal device and I'm managing navigation ) about hiding the bar on Honeycomb devices. My clients, however, will be using the newest Ice Cream Sandwich devices and are very keen on hiding the bar at the bottom the screen. Their application is not for regular consumer use and it's very important for them to take over the whole screen to provide their experience. How possible is it to hide this bar -- or at least, override the behaviour of all the buttons -- without rooting the devices or rewriting its firmware?

Check out SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION, this flag hides the navigation bar until the user interacts with the device. It was introduced in Android 4.0. You can enable this flag for example like this:
getWindow().getDecorView()
.setSystemUiVisibility(View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION);
Note that the navigation won't disappear again automatically, you have to set it every time after the user interacted with the device.
Alternatively you can make the navigation less obtrusive by using SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LOW_PROFILE, this changes the buttons into small dots (e.g. like the camera app).

on rooted devices, i use the following adb command
adb shell pm disable com.android.systemui
to hide navigation bar permanently. To show it again, run
adb shell pm enable com.android.systemui
so far it's working fine for me

Using the below code is one way of doing it to hide navigation
getWindow().getDecorView()
.setSystemUiVisibility(View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION);
But the problem with the above is that it becomes visible as soon as user touches the screen.
In Android Kitkat there is a feature called as IMMERSIVE which hides the notification bar and the navigation. It does not show even if the user interacts with the screen. However the user can make it visible by swiping it from top of the screen to bottom. Below is the code to achieve it
//Initializew this in onCreate()
View mDecorView = getWindow().getDecorView();
//Then call this function
private void hideSystemUI() {
mDecorView.setSystemUiVisibility(View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_STABLE
| View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_HIDE_NAVIGATION
| View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LAYOUT_FULLSCREEN
| View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION
| View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_FULLSCREEN
| View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LOW_PROFILE
| View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_IMMERSIVE);
}
However in my case I never wanted the navigation and notification bar to be visible even if the user swipes from top of the screen to bottom. I gave it a try and I was able to achieve it partially. What I did was I implemented a CountDownTimerwhich would call hideSystemUI() every second or so. I know it is not the best way of doing it. But I did not get any other solution to do it.
If someone gets any then please let me know on how to permanently hide navigation and notification bar :) Hope this answer helps some one in future :)
Watch this video to better understand about this feature.

Update - there is a work around which can be used for such cases (manually setting up the app for the client). Indeed, the navigation bar can't be removed within the given framework.
However, there is a solution to hide the navigation bar if rooting the device is an option for you. Here is how:
Root device
Install and run Busybox
Install HideBar
In HideBar there is an option to run in 'Kiosk' mode, in which there is no way to re-display the navigation bar. Needless to say, you really need to be careful with this.
Risks involved:
bricking the device
getting the installation of BusyBox wrong, which could get things a bit tricky, although is very unlikely to cause loss of information.
getting into a stalemate where you can't quit your app. For example if 1 your GUI doesn't provide a close option, 2 your app start automatically on start-up, 3 HideBar doesn"t allow any way of re-displaying the navigation bar and 4 HideBar hids the navigation bar on startup. However this can be overcome by simply stopping/uninstalling your app from adb.
Here are other identical questions:
Android tablet navigation bar won't hide
How to remove system bars on Android, I mean, all
Android tablet navigation bar won't hide
Is there a way to hide the system/navigation bar in Android ICS
Hide Tablet system bar
Real Fullscreen with Android 4 Tablets
Easy way to hide system bar on Android ICS

Although it's a hacky solution, I think it deserves attention because does not require rooting the device:
getWindow().getDecorView().setSystemUiVisibility(8);.

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);

EDIT: As of 4.4 (19) you can use the following to enable what is called "IMMERSIVE MODE". It was introduced for Google's Cardboard vrtoolkit, but can be used generally.
setSystemUiVisibility(View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_IMMERSIVE)
https://developer.android.com/training/system-ui/immersive.html
From my efforts, it seems that:
setSystemUiVisibility(View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION)
does not work on tablets.
It does work on smartphones (tested with a Nexus 4 Mako), but it will reappear on a touch/click event.
This also seems to capture focus to the bar, forcing you to click twice to regain focus to the view.
I have been trying to find a way to trap the event that actually redisplays the bar. No luck.
Being stubborn, I am going to download the android os code, fire up the eclipse debugger and go a-huntin. This is not a bug - the nav bar is crucial to app lifecycle.
I have seen apps do it (games and such) so there is a way without rooting.

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.

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.

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

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

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"));

How to hide StatusBar in Android 4

How to hide StatusBar in Android 4:
Help me, please.

The bar that is shown in the image in your question is called the system bar.
On devices with no hardware buttons the system bar will always be displayed if user input occurs. You can call setSystemUiVisibility with the flags SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION and request the following window feature FLAG_FULLSCREEN via the Window. This should hide the system bar and make your view fullscreen as long as the user does not interact with the screen. If the user touches the screen the system bar will reappear to allow the user to use the home and back software keys.
If you have a view that the user will interact with but you want him not to be distracted by the system bar you can set the SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LOW_PROFILE flag. This should dim the system bar and make it less distracting.

I agree with Janusz. You can not get 100% true full screen in Android 4.0.
Use the following to dim the notification bar (aka. status bar, system bar)
getWindow().getDecorView().setSystemUiVisibility
(View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_LOW_PROFILE);
And use this to hide it
getWindow().getDecorView().setSystemUiVisibility
(View.SYSTEM_UI_FLAG_HIDE_NAVIGATION);
And, if I guess right, you are trying to achieve a "kiosk mode". You can get a little help with an app named "surelock". This blocks all the "home" and "back" actions.

If you wish a smooth experience without an intermediate "jerked" layout, here is the solution from API level 14.
final Window window = getWindow();
if (isFullScreen == true)
{
window.addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN);
// This flag will prevent the status bar disappearing animation from jerking the content view
window.addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_LAYOUT_NO_LIMITS);
window.clearFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FORCE_NOT_FULLSCREEN);
}
else
{
window.addFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FORCE_NOT_FULLSCREEN);
window.clearFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_LAYOUT_NO_LIMITS);
window.clearFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN);
}

you can hide it. just use following api in OnCreate() method
requestWindowFeature(Window.FEATURE_NO_TITLE);